Overview
- Ecuador’s armed forces, with U.S. support, destroyed a Comandos de la Frontera site in Sucumbíos that officials linked to leader “Mono Tole,” sharing helicopter-strike footage and reporting no casualty details.
- Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell and U.S. Southern Command chief Gen. Francis Donovan praised the action as a successful effort to unite partners against designated narcoterrorist networks.
- Colombia reported seizing 1,373 kilograms of cocaine and destroying five drug-production labs in Puerto Asís and Tumaco in operations coordinated with the DEA and Ecuador.
- Authorities said the facilities tied to the ‘Araña’ network included two cocaine labs and three for base paste, with an officially estimated capacity of up to seven tonnes of cocaine per month routed through Ecuador toward Central America and the United States.
- The U.S. Embassy in Quito issued a cautionary travel advisory as Ecuador enforced nightly curfews through March 30 in Guayas, Los Ríos, Santo Domingo and El Oro, and Colombia moved to install a radar in Ipiales as President Gustavo Petro flagged cross-border trafficking concerns.