A RECORD $1billion worth of cocaine has been seized in one of the world’s biggest drug busts ever.
Ecuador‘s military found 22 tonnes of coke at a pig farm in the province of Los Rios and arrested one person.
AFPA record $1 billion worth of cocaine was seized at a pig farm in Ecuador[/caption]
TwitterA total of 733 sacks, each estimated around $50,000, were lined up during the drug bust[/caption]
AFPThe 22 tonnes of drugs were labelled with European airlines like Lufthansa and KLM[/caption]
The drugs were bound to Europe as each sack, estimated to be worth around $50,000 (£39k), was labelled with airlines such as Etihad, British Aiways, Lufthansa and KLM.
Incredible footage showed soldiers surrounded by the 733 bags of cocaine alongside a weapons cache.
The Ecuadorian army said: “It is presumed that this material could have been transported to the markets of Asia, Europe and North and Central America, using low-performance light aircraft.
“This operation represents a strong weakening of the operational, logistical and financial capacity of drug trafficking worldwide, generating a loss of 50,000 dollars per kilo, approximately more than 1 billion dollars in the international market.
“The success of the military operation is the product of more than six months of the execution of observation and surveillance strategies carried out by our military intelligence,” it added.
Troops used a technique known as encapsulation to destroy the drug, pulverising the seized blocks with waste before mixing the resulting fine powder with cement, sand and glass.
The method prevents cocaine from contaminating the environment or being recovered, they say.
Authorities believe the cocaine belonged to the Fatales gang, a faction of the Choneros, one of Ecuador’s most prominent criminal groups, InSight Crime reports.
Ecuador has experienced a major surge in crime and violence in the last five years, as international cocaine trafficking gangs began exploiting its ports, particularly its largest, Guayaquil, as transit sites for shipments between Colombia and Europe.
The discovery, which comes on top of an estimated 14 tonnes of cocaine seized from gangs this month, is a significant victory for President Daniel Noboa’s war against organised crime in Ecuador.
The country plunged into chaos when convicted gang leader ‘Fito’ escaped prison and authorities declared a national state of emergency.
Just a few days into the new year, hooded gunmen hijacked a live TV broadcast.
Live footage broadcast from Ecuador’s TC station in Guayaquil showed the masked gang waving guns and bombs while threatening people.
Shots could be heard as some of the gunmen told staff members to lie on the ground.
Members of the group were also seen pointing at the cameras and shouting “no police“, before the live feed was cut.
Another gunman was reportedly heard saying: “We are on the air so that they know we do not play with the mafia.”
One of the hooded brutes was even alleged to have left a stick of dynamite in the TV station’s reception area.
And the ex-president of Ecuador has said he “weeps” for the country as rampant violence spreads onto the streets of several cities.
Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado, 60, served as the president of Ecuador from 2007 and 2017.
The ex-president said he has to hold back his tears as he watches his beloved country descend into deadly anarchy.
Mr Correa said: “I have not seen such rapid, deep, serious destruction of a country in times of peace, without sanctions, without a blockade.”
According to the ex-leader of Ecuador, the international figures show that there were 5.8 homicides per thousand inhabitants during his presidency.
This number rose to 42 homicides per thousand inhabitants in 2023.
“That means that we went from being the second safest country in Latin America – only Chile beat us, which has twice the per capita income of Ecuador – to being one of the five most violent countries in the world… of total destruction,” the former president added.
AFPThe haul is one of the world’s biggest ever coke seizures[/caption]
EPAAuthorities then destroyed the hundreds of drug bricks[/caption]
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