Security in Ecuador has come undone as drug cartels exploit the banana industry to ship cocaine

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador — Workers haul their bunches to an assembly line, where the bananas are washed, weighed and plastered with stickers for European buyers. Owner Franklin Torres is monitoring all activity on a recent morning to make sure the fruit meets international beauty standards — and ever more important, is packed for shipment free of cocaine.

Torres is hypervigilant because Ecuador is increasingly at the confluence of two global trades: bananas and cocaine.

The South American country is the world’s largest exporter of bananas, shipping about 6.5 million metric tons (7.2 tons) a year by sea. It is also wedged between the world’s largest cocaine producers, Peru and Colombia, and drug traffickers find containers filled with bananas the perfect vehicle to smuggle their product.

Drug traffickers’ infiltration of the industry that is responsible for about 30% of the world’s bananas has contributed to unprecedented violence across this once-peaceful nation. Shootings, homicides, kidnappings and extortions have become part of daily life, particularly in the Pacific port city and banana-shipping hub of Guayaquil.

The country, which is not a major cocaine producer, was especially rattled when a presidential candidate known for his tough stance on organized crime and corruption was fatally shot at the end of an Aug. 9 campaign rally. He had accused the Ecuadorian Los Choneros gang and its imprisoned leader, whom he linked to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, of threatening him and his campaign team days before the assassination.

In addition to its proximity to cocaine production, cartels from Mexico, Colombia and the Balkans have settled in Ecuador because it uses the U.S. dollar and has weak laws and institutions, along with a network of long-established gangs like Los Choneros.

Knowingly or not, banana growers, exporters, shipping corporations, port operators, private security companies, customs agents, agriculture officials, police, and buyers offer opportunities that drug traffickers have exploited.