Tracking the world’s main cocaine to Europe

“The Albanian Mafia will call me and say,” We want to send 500 kg of drugs. ” If you don’t accept, they kill you. “

Cesar (not his real name) is a member of the Latin kings, a criminal drug band in Ecuador. He was appointed by a corrupt police officer at Counsetercotics to work for the Albanian mafia, one of the most fruiting cocaine trafficking networks in Europe.

The Albanian mafia has expanded its presence in Ecuador in recent years, extracted from key traffic routes through the country and now controls much of the cocaine flow from South America to Europe.

Although Ecuador has not produced the drug, 70% of the world’s cocaine is now passing through his ports, says Ecuador President Daniel Noboa.

It is smuggled in the country by neighboring Colombia and Peru – the two largest cocaine producers in the world.

Police say they seized a record amount of illegal drugs last year, the greater part of it cocaine and that this shows that total exports are increasing.

The consequences are deadly: January 2025 saw 781 murders, making it the most dead month in recent years. Many of them were related to illegal drug trade.

We talked to the people in the supply chain to understand why this crisis is deteriorating – and how the growing European cocaine consumption nourishes it.

The 36 -year -old Cesar first started working with cartels when he was 14 years old, pointing to the bad job opportunities as a factor.

“Albanians needed someone to solve problems,” he explains. “I knew the port guards, the transport drivers, the heads of the CCTV camera.”

He bribes them to help smuggle drugs in Ecuador ports or close their eyes – and occasionally a camera.

After cocaine arrives in Ecuador from Colombia or Peru, he is stored in warehouses until his Albanian employers become aware of a shipping container that will leave one of the ports to Europe.

Banks use three main methods to smuggle cocaine in shipments: Hiding drugs in loads before reaching the harbor, break up into containers of the harbor or attach drugs to ships at sea.

Sometimes Cesar has made up to $ 3,000 (2235 British pounds) for one job, but the incentive is not only money: “If you don’t do the job that Albanians want, they will kill you.”

Cesar says he has some regret for his role in drug trade, more special what he calls “victims of collateral.”

But he believes that the guilt lies in the countries of the users. “If consumption continues to grow and traffic. It will be irresistible,” he says, adding, “If they fight it, it will end here.”

Ordinary workers, not just the band members, are caught in this supply chain.

Juan, not his real name, is a truck driver. One day he lifted a tuna shipment to take to the harbor. He says something seems to have been turned off.

“The first bell of the alarm was when we went to the warehouse and there was only a load, nothing else. It was a hired warehouse, without a company name,” he recalls.

“Two months later, I saw the news that the containers were seized in Amsterdam full of drugs. We never knew.”

Some drivers unknowingly transport drugs; Others are forced – if they refuse, they are killed.

The European gangs are attracted by Ecuador for his location, but also for its legal export, which provides a convenient way to hide illegal loads.

“Exports of bananas make up 66% of the containers leaving Ecuador, 29.81% go to the European Union, where drug consumption is increasing,” explains the banana industry representative Jose Antonio Hedalgo.

Some bands have even created fake fruit or export companies to Europe and Ecuador as a front for illegal activities.

“These European traffickers present themselves as businessmen,” says Jose (not his real name), a prosecutor aimed at organized crime groups and who speaks anonymously because of the threats he has received.

An notorious example is Dritan Gjika, accused of being one of the most powerful Albanian Mafia leaders in Ecuador.

Prosecutors claim that he had partitions in fruit export companies in Ecuador and imported companies in Europe that he used to move cocaine. He remains on the move, but many of his accomplices have encountered sentences after a multinational police operation.

Lawyer Monica Luzaraga defended one of her associates and now talks frankly about her knowledge of how these networks work.

“In those years, the bananas of Albania was flourishing,” she says.

It seems disappointed that the authorities have not collected two and two earlier that the criminal groups use this as a front: “The whole economy here is stagnant. Still, one element that has increased in exports is bananas. So, two plus two equal four.”

In Ecuador’s ports, police and the armed forces are trying to control the situation.

Boats patrol the waters, police scanning bananas boxes for brick cocaine – even police sifles divers are looking for drugs hidden under ships.

They are all highly armed, even those who simply guard the banana boxes before being loaded into delivery containers. This is because if drugs are found during a search, a corrupt port worker will probably be included and this can cause a violent incident.

Despite these efforts, police claim that the amount of cocaine was successfully smuggled by Ecuador has reached a record high. Increasing demand and economic factors are blamed.

Nearly 300 tonnes of drugs were seized last year – a new annual record, according to the Ecuador Interior Ministry.

The main Christian Kozar Queva of the National Police says that “in recent years there has been an increase in attacks to Europe.”

This increase in cocaine shipments made it more dangerous for those caught in the supply chain.

Juan truck driver says the rise of “container pollution” makes it more vulnerable.

He says the employees seized a container the previous day with two tonnes of drugs: “They were pounds before, now we’re talking about tones.”

“If you do not pollute the containers, you have two options: leave the job or find yourself dead.”

An economy, knocked out of the Kovid pandemic, left more Ecuadorians vulnerable to gangs.

A country that was financially stretched after a pandemic, a security force that had less experience in working with organized crime, and the previous visa rules facilitated the presence of the European bands there after 2020.

Monica Luzaraga says 2021 was the year when “the Albanian Mafia infiltration has taken off.”

She says this period coincides with the “influx” of Albanian citizens and a jump in banana exports, including Albania.

“This is a lucrative business that harms Ecuador and takes advantage of criminal organizations. How can we accept an economy built on suffering?”

This fury to foreign cartels is not surprising given their contribution to increasing violence.

But one thing that some traffickers and those who are fighting agree: trade is fueled by users, especially in Europe, the US and Australia.

Show data Global cocaine consumption has reached record levels. His studies suggest that the United Kingdom has the second highest percentage of cocaine use in the world.

The National Crime Agency of the United Kingdom (NCA) estimates that the United Kingdom consumes about 117 tonnes of cocaine a year and has the largest market in Europe.

Evidence suggests that consumption in the UK is increasing.

The UK analysis of the Waste Water Home Office suggests that cocaine consumption increased by 7% from 2023 to 2024. NCA operations seized about 232 tonnes of cocaine in 2024, compared to 194 tonnes in 2023.

The deputy director of the NCA threat leadership Charles Yates says that this makes the United Kingdom the “country of choice” for organized crime groups that benefit from high demand.

He estimates that the cocaine market in the UK is worth about 11 billion British pounds ($ 14.2 billion), and criminal gangs make about 4 billion British pounds a year alone in the United Kingdom alone.

Those who are fighting these bands in Ecuador, such as Prosecutor Jose, say that they are reduced to “countries whose citizens are consumers to exercise more control” over trading financing.

His victims take many forms.

For G -ndalgo, this banana exporters suffer reputation and economic damage. For Mrs. Luzárraga, “Children, adolescents are cooperated by criminal gangs.”

“There are citizens in Europe who want to pay large sums of money to have the drugs they consume.

The NCA emphasizes that as well as these “catastrophic” effects on the supply chain communities, cocaine use is claiming additional victims of consumers due to cardiovascular and psychological effects. The death associated with cocaine in the UK increased by 30% in 2023 compared to 2022 to 1118.

NCA also warns that drugs exacerbate domestic violence.

He is clear the efforts to deal with supply are not enough: “The action of the supply country will never be the answer in itself. What really matters is to change your demand.”

From members of the drug gang to the president of the country, this is the message of Ecuador and to Europe.

President Daniel Noboa, second -term In the expiration of the presidential election on April 13, he struggled against the criminal gangs one of his main priorities and has the military to deal with the band -related violence.

He told the BBC, “The chain that ends in” The UK Fun “includes a lot of violence.”

“What is fun for a person probably involves 20 murders along the way.”

Additional reporting by Jessica Cruz