According to the Ecuadorian police, 14.7 tons of drugs were seized in four ports in the first two months of 2023, most of them destined for Europe.
Almost half of the 31 tons of drugs that have been seized in more than 1,500 operations nationwide since the beginning of 2023 were going to be exported using ports as an exit route, which highlights the importance of the early implementation of scanner technology to review exportable cargo.
The most recent operation took place in a port in Guayaquil, where authorities seized almost 9 tons of cocaine camouflaged in a shipment of bananas bound for Belgium.
The new deadline for the installation of the scanners
Since the approval of Decree 227 in Ecuador, which had set a deadline for November 2022, only two ports have installed scanners to check the exportable cargo: Posorja and Manta. Manta has been using this technology since 2019, two years before the decree.
Ecuador's National Customs Service (SENAE) was appointed by President Guillermo Lasso to coordinate the task of implementing the scanners in the country's ports. The installation of the scanners in all of the country's ports will require a total investment of 55 million dollars.
Felipe Ochoa, Senae's deputy director general of operations, confirmed that the Contecon port will be the third to have the technology and that the new deadline for the installation of the equipment in the remaining 7 ports is May 24.
Source: mundomaritimo.cl