US Southern Command said in a press release on Saturday that its forces interdicted alleged drug-linked boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean and sank the main vessel after the crew was removed and handed over to the Ecuadorian authorities.
It marked the fourth such interdiction the US military has carried out since August 28. The US has accused the boats of acting as “floating refueling stations” that are operating “in support of illicit at-sea drug trafficking operations” on behalf of the Los Choneros gang, allegations that have been denied by crew members and relatives, who say they’re ordinary fishermen.
The Ecuadorian government has defended the US interdictions, which have been described as joint US-Ecuadorian military operations, though Ecuadorian authorities have released crew members from the vessels that have been targeted, raising questions about what evidence was used to justify the targeting of their boats.
The Ecuadorian news outlet Primicias reported that 28 crew members from two of the boats that were interdicted were released on Saturday, a day after they arrived in the Ecuadorian port of Manta. A lawyer for the fishermen said that “the prosecutor could not prove to the judge that there were suspicions of any crime being committed.”
The US and Ecuador have ramped up military cooperation against alleged drug trafficking activity, which included the bombing of what the Ecuadorian government claimed was a drug camp inside Ecuador back in March, though a report from The New York Times found the facility was a dairy farm.
A series of mysterious drone attacks have also targeted Ecuadorian fishing boats, incidents first reported by Drop Site News. A report from The Washington Post recently revealed that the attacks were part of a covert CIA operation, the details of which remain shrouded in secrecy.
The US operations in and off the coast of Ecuador are part of the broader US military campaign, which has included the strikes on smaller alleged drug-running boats. The attacks, which amount to extrajudicial executions at sea, have killed at least 227 people.
