[Breitbart] Ecuador’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday announced that, with the help of the United States, Ecuadorian Armed Forces officials seized 1.9 tons of presumptively U.S.-bound suspected drugs at sea.
The Ministry detailed in an official statement that the drug bust was carried out by Ecuadorian officials in collaboration with the U.S. Coast Guard and the support of naval intelligence, noting that the action was part of the South American country’s cooperation agreements to combat transnational crime at sea with allied nations such as the United States. The seized illicit cargo is valued at approximately $40 million at U.S. markets and $70 million in Europe, according to the Ministry.
President Daniel Noboa was among the 12 Latin American and Caribbean heads of state invited by President Donald Trump to form part of the “Shield of the Americas,” a regional security initiative led by the United States in the fight against drug cartels, illegal and mass migration, and stopping foreign malign influence throughout the region.
Noboa, describing the United States’s army as the most powerful in the world, told Univision on Tuesday that Ecuador’s Armed Forces want to work alongside U.S. forces, noting that it is not U.S. “interventionism” that American forces operate in the country, as it is a joint collaboration between both countries. |