Ecuador will use the four scanners that the National Customs Service of Ecuador (SENAE) received on Monday from the US Embassy in Quito to strengthen security and drug controls in its land borders with Colombia and Peru.
The four scanners were delivered by the US at Quito's airport facilities, in an event that was attended by the Ministers of Interior, Juan Zapata, and Defense, Luis Lara, the director for Ecuador of the Office of Anti-Narcotics Affairs of the United States, Liv Kilpatrick, and the director of SENAE, Carola Ríos.
The scanners will be used at temporary depots, ports, airports, and border crossings to detect drugs and other contraband goods, currency trafficking, and illegal trade in goods and species, the Ministry of Interior stated.
Unfortunately, in recent years Ecuador has gained weight in the routes of drug trafficking through its ports, mainly that of Guayaquil, which has become one of the great springboards of cocaine that reaches North America and Europe from South America; in fact, Ecuador is the third country in the world where more narcotics are seized, only behind Colombia and the United States, according to the latest World Drug Report of the United Nations Office on Drugs (UNODC).
Between 2015 and 2022, some 141 tons of drugs were seized in the port of Guayaquil alone, and in the 2020-2023 period, more than half (93.91 tons or 52%) of the drugs seized in Ecuadorian ports was being smuggled in banana shipments.
Source: lavanguardia.com