The US Treasury Department sanctioned 15 people on Aug. 20, 2026, alleging that they participated in a network moving thousands of kilograms of cocaine each month from Ecuador through Mexico to the United States.
Treasury said the operation used apparently legitimate fishing businesses and a fleet of vessels based near Manta, Ecuador. Those boats allegedly transferred cocaine at sea to smaller high-speed craft that travelled north through the eastern Pacific. The drugs then moved through Mexico toward the United States, according to the department's account.
The designated individuals were allegedly associated with Los Choneros and Los Lobos, two Ecuadorean gangs that the United States had previously classified as foreign terrorist organizations. Treasury said Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación handled later stages of smuggling. Both Mexican groups also carry the US foreign-terrorist designation. The available reporting did not list the sanctioned people, specify the legal authorities used or provide their responses.
Ecuador has faced escalating drug-related violence since 2021 as international cartels formed partnerships with local organizations and competed for coastal ports and trafficking routes. The country lies between Colombia and Peru, recognized as the world's leading cocaine-producing countries.
The Interior Ministry recorded 50 homicides for every 100,000 residents in 2025, Ecuador's highest rate in decades. President Daniel Noboa has built a close counter-narcotics relationship with President Donald Trump's administration as the security crisis has deepened.
Ecuadorean Defence Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo announced a separate expansion in maritime cooperation on the same day as the sanctions. He said two US warships equipped with helicopters and interceptor boats would patrol Ecuador's territorial waters in support of anti-trafficking operations. The minister did not provide a starting date.
Loffredo said the assistance would triple Ecuador's maritime interdiction capability. He also reported that three Black Hawk helicopters were in Manta and would conduct operations. The announcement followed his meeting in the port city with General Francis Donovan, head of US Southern Command. Southern Command did not immediately answer a request from the Associated Press for more detail.
The Treasury action came amid a broader and more lethal US regional campaign. AP reported that American attacks on fishermen in the Caribbean and Pacific had killed more than 200 people as the Trump administration expanded joint operations against drug trafficking. AP did not provide the circumstances of those attacks, so no conclusion about individual cases can be drawn here.
The sanctions and planned patrols combine financial pressure, terrorist designations and maritime enforcement. Treasury's trafficking description remains an official allegation; the report did not include a court judgment establishing the network's conduct.
