VOA新闻杂志2023--Drug Traffickers Use Banana Industry in Ecuador for Shipping

Drug Traffickers Use Banana Industry in Ecuador for Shipping¹

Ecuador is increasingly at the meeting point of two worldwide trades: bananas and cocaine².

The South American country is the world's largest exporter of bananas with about 6.5 million metric tons a year. Its neighbors, Peru and Colombia, are the world's largest cocaine producers.

Drug traffickers find containers filled with bananas the perfect vehicle to smuggle³ their product.

Drug trafficking has since brought extreme violence across this once-peaceful nation. Shootings, murders, kidnappings and extortions have become part of daily life. That is especially true in the Pacific port city and banana-shipping center of Guayaquil.

The country was shocked when Fernando Villavicencio, a presidential candidate known for his tough position on organized crime, was shot to death on August 9. He had accused the Ecuadorian Los Choneros criminal group and its imprisoned⁵ leader of threatening him and his campaign team days before the killing⁶.

In addition to being close to cocaine production, drug smugglers from Mexico, Colombia and the Balkans in Europe have also set up operations in Ecuador. That is because the country uses the U.S. dollar; its laws and institutions are weak; and criminal groups like Los Choneros are ready to work.

A record 2,304 metric tons of cocaine was produced in 2021 around the world, mostly in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. That year, nearly a third of the cocaine seized by officials in Western and Central Europe came from Ecuador, two times the amount reported in 2018, found a United Nations report.

Large drug seizures⁸ have become more common within the past month. European officials have made record-setting seizures after inspecting containers carrying bananas from Ecuador.

Officials on August 25 announced Spain's biggest cocaine seizure⁷ yet: 9.5 metric tons hidden among boxes of bananas from Ecuador in a refrigerated container. Dutch officials also made their country's largest-ever cocaine seizure last month — nearly 8 metric tons — in a container of Ecuadorian bananas. Officials in Greece and Italy also announced seizures of cocaine hidden in Ecuadorian bananas this year.

Knowingly or not, banana growers, exporters, shipping companies, port operators, private security companies, customs agents, agriculture officials, police, and buyers can be used by drug traffickers.

Some traffickers have created false companies to look like real banana exporters. Others have taken control of legal businesses, including plantations⁹. They have found companies willing to cooperate in trafficking. They have also paid off, threatened or kidnapped truck drivers and other workers to help get cocaine into shipments.

Violent deaths in Ecuador have doubled from 2021 to 2022, when 4,600 died, the most ever recorded in a year. The country is likely to break the yearly record again, with 3,568 violent deaths recorded in the first half of 2023. In Guayaquil, people live in fear.

No more than 30 percent of containers are currently inspected at Ecuadorian ports. President Guillermo Lasso's government says it wants to use scanners on entire containers. Twelve of those machines were supposed to be operating already but that has not happened yet, said National Police General Pablo Ramírez. He is Ecuador's national director of anti-drug investigations¹⁰.

Jose Hidalgo is director of the Association of Banana Exporters of Ecuador. He said the industry is more vulnerable to trafficking than other export products because of the number of containers that it uses.

He explained that exporters spend about $100 million yearly on security measures. That includes surveillance cameras at plantations, GPS monitoring of trucks, and the identification of land routes that require police patrols to keep criminals away.

Still, some exporters have been accused of being involved in trafficking cocaine. The organization behind the cocaine seizure in Spain operated through a banana exporting company in Machala, a city south of Guayaquil.

After this story was published in The Associated Press, agriculture and customs officials in Ecuador announced in a statement that they had removed a government-run banana export database. It removed information on export companies considered to be false or incomplete. It also canceled permits of plantations covering 16,000 hectares found to be nonexistent.

Words in This Story

smuggle — v. to move from one country into another illegally and secretly

extort⁴ — v. to get from a person by the use of force or threats

institution — n. an established organization

refrigerate — adj. to put or keep in a refrigerator in order to make it cold or keep it fresh

customs — n. an action or way of behaving that is usual and traditional among the people in a particular group or place

scanner — n. a device that reads or copies information or images into a computer

vulnerable — adj. easily hurt or harmed physically¹¹, mentally, or emotionally

surveillance — n. the act of carefully watching someone or something especially in order to prevent or detect a crime

monitor — v. a device that is used for showing, watching, or listening to something

1 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

2 cocaine   

n.可卡因，古柯碱（用作局部麻醉剂）

参考例句：

• That young man is a cocaine addict.那个年轻人吸食可卡因成瘾。
• Don't have cocaine abusively.不可滥服古柯碱。

3 smuggle   

vt.私运；vi.走私

参考例句：

• Friends managed to smuggle him secretly out of the country.朋友们想方设法将他秘密送出国了。
• She has managed to smuggle out the antiques without getting caught.她成功将古董走私出境，没有被逮捕。

4 extort   

v.勒索，敲诈，强要

参考例句：

• The blackmailer tried to extort a large sum of money from him.勒索者企图向他勒索一大笔钱。
• They absolutely must not harm the people or extort money from them.严格禁止坑害勒索群众。

5 imprisoned   

下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was imprisoned for two concurrent terms of 30 months and 18 months. 他被判处30个月和18个月的监禁，合并执行。
• They were imprisoned for possession of drugs. 他们因拥有毒品而被监禁。

6 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

7 seizure   

n.没收；占有；抵押

参考例句：

• The seizure of contraband is made by customs.那些走私品是被海关没收的。
• The courts ordered the seizure of all her property.法院下令查封她所有的财产。

8 seizures   

n.起获( seizure的名词复数 )；没收；充公；起获的赃物

参考例句：

• Seizures of illicit drugs have increased by 30% this year. 今年违禁药品的扣押增长了30%。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Other causes of unconsciousness predisposing to aspiration lung abscess are convulsive seizures. 造成吸入性肺脓肿昏迷的其他原因，有惊厥发作。 来自辞典例句

9 plantations   

n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Soon great plantations, supported by slave labor, made some families very wealthy. 不久之后出现了依靠奴隶劳动的大庄园，使一些家庭成了富豪。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• Winterborne's contract was completed, and the plantations were deserted. 维恩特波恩的合同完成后，那片林地变得荒废了。 来自辞典例句

10 investigations   

（正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究

参考例句：

• His investigations were intensive and thorough but revealed nothing. 他进行了深入彻底的调查，但没有发现什么。
• He often sent them out to make investigations. 他常常派他们出去作调查。

11 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。