Ecuador's National Police seized 627 kilos of cocaine at the port of Posorja, in the province of Guayas, after intercepting a shipping container that originated in Peru and was destined for Germany. The cargo had been declared as cacao.
Interior Minister John Reimberg confirmed the bust on Saturday. Police found 631 packages of cocaine inside the container, equivalent to 6.27 million doses. Reimberg put the street value of the seizure at $18.83 million in the United States and $29.35 million in Europe.
Two individuals identified as Christian V. and Robinson V. were arrested during the operation.
The seizure adds to an already staggering national tally. Ecuador has been intercepting an average of 200 metric tons of cocaine annually since 2021, and set a historical record of close to 300 metric tons in 2024. That places the country third in the world for drug seizures, behind only Colombia and the United States.
The geography explains a lot. Ecuador sits between Colombia and Peru — the two largest cocaine-producing countries on the planet — and operates several Pacific ports, including Guayaquil, through which enormous volumes of product move toward Europe and North America. Its dollarized economy makes it an attractive logistics hub for trafficking networks as well.
Here's the thing: the route from Peru through Ecuador to Germany is not an anomaly — it is the pipeline. Posorja is not a remote backwater; it is a functioning commercial port where legitimate cacao exports and cocaine shipments compete for the same container slots. The declared cargo in this case was cacao, a commodity Ecuador genuinely exports in quantity, which is precisely what makes the concealment plausible and the interdiction difficult.
Every ton seized at Posorja is a data point in favor of sustained investment in port security and regional law-enforcement cooperation. The numbers — 300 metric tons intercepted in a single year — are impressive. The question the market always asks is how much got through.
