By The Opinion
The Gulf of Guayaquil, considered the largest estuary on the South American Pacific coast, has become an area disputed by criminal groups that are looking for new ways to introduce drugs on ships that leave the ports of the most populated city in Ecuador bound for Europe and the United States.
The dense vegetation and difficult-to-access areas of the islands allow these gangs to camouflage themselves and hide the drugs.mainly cocaine, underground or in improvised camps, and then introducing it into the hulls of ships or loading it onto vessels while they are heading to sea, in order to evade port controls, especially in Guayaquil, whose terminals concentrate 85% of the national cargo.
“The storage (of drugs) that exists on the islets, on the Gulf Islands, is extremely worrying,” a member of the Police Mobile Anti-Narcotics Special Group (GEMA), who frequently carry out river patrols to try to dismantle these groups and avoid contamination, told EFE.
The unit has 20 divers who constantly check the invisible part of the vessels that will go mainly to the United States and Europe, and another non-public that checks the internals of the vessels and also the containers, especially after international or intelligence alerts.
RIVER CONTROL OPERATIONS
They are executed by the Special Mobile Anti-Narcotics Group (GEMA), in order to prevent the contamination of containers in the different sea ports of #Guayaquil, as well as to avoid criminal acts in bodies of water.
More details: 📹 pic.twitter.com/sfqGxyc5Zo
— Police Ecuador Guayaquil – Zona8 (@PoliciaEcZona8) Might well well 6, 2025
In an operation in which EFE was present, the agents inspected several areas where they believe criminal groups may be hiding and where they have already found tons of drugs and weapons.
They also checked boats with a suspicious attitude or sectors close to shrimp farms, which Sometimes they are extorted by criminal groups in exchange for money or spaces to hide the substance and go unnoticed.
In total, Ecuador seizes about 300 tons of drugs a yearwhich makes it the third country with the largest seizures in the world, becoming a key point of global cocaine trafficking, where criminal gangs have unleashed the worst crisis of violence in its history.
With information from EFE.
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