Jania Ashlynn
Smugglers are getting more and more creative with their tactics to taxi drugs around the globe. Up next on the docket is bananas.
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Authorities in Guayaquil, Ecuador seized over nine tons of cocaine packed away inside bananas. The drugs were on their way to Belgium. Guayaquil is a known drug transport site in the cocaine trade.
Captured
Fausto Salinas, the National Police Chief, stated that the drugs were worth $330 million in Europe. Ecuador has become one of the most prominent areas for drug trafficking. Producers and dealers in South American countries like Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia push shipments headed for Europe and the U.S. through Guayaquil.
Authorities have performed several large seizures in the last few years. Over 200 tons of drugs were captured in 2021. The previous year, double the previous amount was apprehended by the Ecuadorian police. Ecuador has seized the third-largest amount of drugs in the world, just behind the U.S. and Colombia.
The drugs are being put to good use by being turned into concrete. The drugs, when combined with water and sand, can create the road material. Cocaine can’t be burned quickly enough by United Nations authorities. This new initiative has repurposed large amounts of cocaine in just a few days.
Going To War
Ecuador is casting the blame onto the Mexican cartel, stating that the spikes in smuggling attempts and violence are attributed to the epidemic. The drug war between the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco Generation Cartel has had a dangerous effect on other countries where the drugs are shipped to and from.
Gruesome violence has spread throughout several nations. Mutilated bodies and severed heads have been found tossed into the streets and strung from bridges. Previously peaceful countries have been plunged into all-out chaos.
