U.S. Southern Command said Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere intercepted and sank a vessel in the Eastern Pacific on September 7 after identifying it as a floating refueling station supporting drug trafficking at sea. According to SOUTHCOM, personnel removed the people aboard before the vessel was cleared and sunk; those individuals are to be transferred to Ecuadorian authorities.
SOUTHCOM said its intelligence linked the vessel to Los Choneros, an Ecuadorian criminal organization that the United States designates as a foreign terrorist organization. The command did not publicly name the vessel, state how many people were aboard or release the intelligence supporting that assessment.
A 15-second public-domain video released by SOUTHCOM through the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service shows a vessel under observation, military personnel boarding it and a later strike. The accompanying statement says the operation was intended to disrupt logistical networks that support maritime drug trafficking.
The Associated Press reported that this was the fifth vessel targeted by U.S. forces in less than two weeks. Ecuadorian authorities had not immediately commented on the September 7 action, and relatives of crews from earlier interdictions have disputed U.S. allegations in some cases. The cartel link in this article is therefore presented as SOUTHCOM’s determination, not as an independently established fact.
