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US & Ecuador Carry Out Joint Military Operations Targeting Cartel Groups & Gangs

Wednesday, March 4, 2026 3:01

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“Socalj” for Borderland Beat

The United States and Ecuador conducted joint military operations against “designated terrorist organizations in Ecuador,” U.S. Southern Command (SOCOM) announced on Tuesday.

This is the first time, officially, that the U.S. military has engaged in a land combat operation against South American drug cartels and gangs since the 1980s.

Recently, the U.S. military had only carried out airstrikes targeting smuggling boats in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean killing a total of 152 alleged traffickers.

“In March, we will conduct joint operations with our regional allies, including the United States,” President Noboa wrote on X.

On Monday, Noboa held talks in Quito with US Southern Command chief Francis Donovan and Mark Schafer, head of US Special Operations in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

During the meeting, they discussed plans for information sharing and operational coordination at airports and seaports, Noboa’s office said in a statement.

The US Embassy in Ecuador also reported the arrest of 16 people, including a former assemblyman, allegedly linked to the Albanian mafia and Los Lobos. The network sent drugs to Europe in shipping containers.

In August 2023, several Colombia gunmen assassinated presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. He was outspoken about links between Los Choneros and the Sinaloa Cartel and the corruption in Ecuador.

Ecuador is the world’s largest export point of cocaine traveling both into Central America, Mexico and the United States as well as directly to Europe and other continents. Around 70% of the drugs produced by Colombia and Peru, are shipped through neighboring Ecuador.

Jose Adolfo Macias, the longtime Los Choneros gang leader known as “Fito” was recently arraigned in the United States after being recaptured and extradited from Ecuador.

Now the Ecuadorian Prosecutor’s Office have charged Wilmer Geovanny Chavarría “Pipo” head of the rival Los Lobos gang, who is currently detained in Spain, as an alleged participant in the planning of the murder, which, according to the Public Ministry, has as alleged intellectual authors a group of businessmen linked to corruption schemes that Villavicencio was pursuing and the former Correa minister José Serrano.

Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa called current Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa a criminal after Wilmer Chavarria accused him in Spain of ordering the assassination of the presidential candidate in 2023.

On his X account, Correa wrote: “Remember how Villavicencio ‘s wife accused Daniel Noboa and Diana Salazar (Attorney General) of being behind her husband’s death? Now it all makes sense. Noboa won in 2023 through murder, and in 2025 through fraud. CRIMINAL!”

As part of the “internal armed conflict,” the Ecuadorian government has labeled several criminal organizations as terrorists. The Trump administration also designated Los Choneros and Los Lobos, as FTO terrorist organisations, linked respectively to the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels.

Noboa last year pushed for the reopening of a closed US military base but was voted down in a November referendum against overturning a ban on foreign bases.

In December, the United States announced a temporary deployment of Air Force personnel to the former US base in the port city of Manta.

Sources SOUTHCOM, La Silla Rota, France24

Source: https://www.borderlandbeat.com/2026/03/us-ecuador-carry-out-joint-military.html

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