"The Albanian mafia would call me and say, 'We want to send 500 kilograms of drugs.' If you don't accept, they'll kill you."
Caesar (not his real name) is a member of the Latin Kings, a criminal drug cartel in Ecuador.
He was recruited by a corrupt police officer from the anti-narcotics department to work for the Albanian mafia, one of the most prolific cocaine trafficking networks in Europe.
The Albanian mafia has expanded its presence in Ecuador in recent years, attracted by key trafficking routes through the country, and now controls most of the cocaine flow from South America to Europe.
Despite Ecuador not producing the drug, 70 percent of the world's cocaine now passes through its ports, according to Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa.
It is smuggled into the country from neighboring Colombia and Peru - the two largest cocaine producers in the world.
- How the Albanian mafia operates in Latin America and how far its tentacles reach
- Albanian gangs are recruiting migrants for drug trafficking in the UK
- Albanians, the most numerous migrants who cross the Channel to England, London and Tirana exchanged harsh words
Police say they seized a record amount of illegal drugs last year, mostly kokanee, and that this suggests that the overall amount of exports is increasing.
The consequences are deadly: in January 2025, there were more than 780 murders, making it the deadliest month in recent years.
Many of them were linked to the illegal drug trade.
We spoke to people in the supply chain to understand why this crisis is worsening and how it is being fueled by the rise in European cocaine consumption.
Cesar (36) first started working with cartels when he was 14, citing poor job opportunities as one factor.
"The Albanians needed someone to solve their problems," he explains.
"I knew the port guards, the transporters, the security camera supervisors."
He bribes them to smuggle drugs into Ecuadorian ports or to turn a blind eye or turn off a few cameras.
After cocaine arrives in Ecuador from Colombia or Peru, it is held in warehouses until Albanian employers learn of a shipping container that will soon be traveling to a European port.
Gangs use three main methods to smuggle cocaine into ships' cargo: hiding the drug in the shipment before it arrives at port, breaking into containers in port, or loading the drugs onto ships on the high seas.
Sometimes Cezar earns up to $3.000 per job, but for him, the incentive is not just money: "If you don't do the job the Albanians ask you to do, they'll kill you."
Caesar says he has some regrets about his role in the drug trade, especially what he calls "collateral victims."
But he believes the user countries are to blame.
"If the consumption rate increases, sales will increase. It will be unstoppable," he says.
"If they fight it there, it will end here."
Watch the video: Ecuador - from a peaceful place to a drug gang conflict
Ordinary workers, not just gang members, are also caught in the jaws of this supply chain.
Juan (not his real name) is a truck driver.
One day he picked up a shipment of tuna to transport to the port.
He says something wasn't right there.
"The first alarm went off when we arrived at the warehouse and there was only one load and nothing else. It was a rented warehouse, the company had no name," he recalls.
"Two months later, I saw on the news that containers had been seized in Amsterdam, full of drugs. We had no idea."
Some drivers unknowingly transport drugs; others are forced to do so - if they refuse, they will be killed.
European gangs are attracted to Ecuador because of its location, but also because of its legal exports, which provide a convenient way to hide illegal cargo.
"Banana exports account for 66 percent of the containers that leave Ecuador, 29,81 percent of which go to the European Union, where drug consumption is on the rise," explains banana industry representative José Antonio Hidalgo.
Some gangs have even set up fake companies to export or import fruit in Europe and Ecuador as a front for illegal activities.
"These European smugglers pose as businessmen," says José (not his real name), a prosecutor who hunts down organized crime groups and who spoke to us anonymously because of the threats he regularly receives.
- What does a "cocaine submarine" look like for transporting drugs from Latin America to Europe
- "Cocaine collectors" who retrieve smuggled drugs from the port of Rotterdam
- Refrigerators full of tires, cocaine bananas and wet clothes - how customs officials stand in the way of drug smuggling
A notorious example is Dritan Đika, accused of being one of the most powerful Albanian mafia leaders in Ecuador.
Prosecutors say he has stakes in fruit export companies in Ecuador and fruit import companies in Europe, which he uses to smuggle cocaine.
He is on the run, but many of his accomplices have been convicted after a multinational police operation.
Lawyer Monica Luzaraga defended one of his associates and is now speaking openly about her knowledge of how these networks operate.
"In those years, banana exports to Albania skyrocketed," she says.
She sounds unhappy that the authorities didn't put two and two together sooner that criminal groups were using it as a front.
"The entire economy here is stagnant. And yet the one item that jumped in exports was bananas. So two plus two equals four."
Why are exports on the rise?
In Ecuadorian ports, police and armed forces are trying to control the situation.
Boats patrol the waters, police scan banana boxes for "bricks" of cocaine - even police divers search for drugs hidden under ships.
Everyone is heavily armed, even those who are just guarding boxes of bananas before they are loaded into shipping containers.
This is because if drugs are found during a search, a corrupt dock worker is likely to be involved, and this could trigger a violent incident.
Despite these efforts, police say the amount of cocaine being successfully smuggled out of Ecuador has reached record highs.
This is blamed on rising demand and economic factors.
Nearly 300 tons of drugs were seized last year - a new annual record, according to the Ecuadorian Ministry of the Interior.
Major Cristian Cozar Cueva of the National Police says that in recent years there has been "about a 30 percent increase in seizures of shipments to Europe."
This increase in cocaine shipments has made the entire situation more dangerous for those caught in the supply chain.
Truck driver "Huan" says the rise in "container contamination" is making him more vulnerable.
He says officials seized a container with two tons of cocaine the day before yesterday.
"It used to be two kilograms, now we're talking tons."
"If you don't contaminate the containers, you have two options: quit your job or end up dead."
An economy devastated by the Covid pandemic has left more Ecuadorians vulnerable to gang recruitment.
A country that was financially ruined after the pandemic, security forces that had less experience in fighting organized crime, and previously lenient visa rules led to the emergence of European gangs there after 2020.
Monica Luzaraga says 2021 was the year when "the infiltration of the Albanian mafia soared."
She says this period coincided with an "influx" of Albanian citizens and a surge in banana exports, even to Albania.
"It's an extremely lucrative business that harms Ecuador and benefits criminal organizations."
"How can we accept an economy built on suffering?"
- The link between the turmoil in Ecuador and the world drug trade
- British "Fox" tricked us into smuggling drugs, sailors claim
- The godmother of cocaine and the queen of crime: Grizelda Blanco and the drug lords of Latin America
A message for Europe
This anger towards foreign cartels is not surprising, given their contribution to the rise in violence.
But there is one thing that some smugglers and those who fight them agree on: the trade is fueled by consumers, especially in Europe, the US and Australia.
UN data shows that global cocaine consumption has reached record highs.
Its surveys show that the UK has the second highest rate of cocaine use in the world.
The British National Crime Agency (NCA) estimates that the UK consumes around 117 tonnes of cocaine annually and has the largest market in Europe.
Evidence shows that consumption in the UK is on the rise.
A UK Home Office analysis of wastewater shows that cocaine consumption increased by 7 percent from 2023 to 2024.
NCA operations in 2024 seized approximately 232 tons of cocaine, up from 194 tons in 2023.
Watch the video: Man tried to smuggle cocaine under a wig, then got arrested
NCA Deputy Director of Threat Assessment Charles Yates says this makes the UK a "country of choice" for organised crime groups who profit from high demand.
He estimates that the British cocaine market is worth around $14,2 billion, and that criminal gangs earn around $XNUMX billion a year in the UK alone.
Those fighting these gangs in Ecuador, such as prosecutor José, say it is up to "the countries whose citizens are cocaine consumers to exercise stricter control" of those who finance the trade.
Their victims come in various forms.
For Hidalgo, it is banana exporters who suffer financial and reputational damage.
For Luzaraga, these are "children, adolescents who are recruited by criminal gangs."
"In Europe you have citizens willing to pay large amounts of money to get the drugs they consume. Drugs that in the end the citizens of Ecuador pay with their lives."
The NCA points out that in addition to these "catastrophic" consequences for communities along the entire supply chain, cocaine use takes an additional toll among users due to cardiovascular and psychological consequences.
Cocaine-related deaths in the UK jumped 30 percent in 2023 compared to 2022, to 1.118.
The NCA also warns that drugs exacerbate domestic violence.
He makes it clear that law enforcement efforts are not enough: "Supply-side action alone will never be the solution. What is important is to change demand."
From drug gang members to the country's president, this is Ecuador's message to Europe.
President Daniel Noboa, who is running for a second term in the second round of presidential elections on April 13, has made the fight against criminal gangs one of his priorities and has deployed the army to combat gang violence.
He told the BBC: "The chain that ends with 'partying in the UK' involves a lot of violence."
"What is fun for one person probably involves 20 murders along the way."
Additional reporting: Jessica Cruz
- The leader of a notorious Ecuadorian gang "evaporated" from prison, the army suppresses riots in penal institutions
- How Ecuador went from tourist paradise to gangland
- Fentanyl, a synthetic heroin, is causing death in Mexico as well, spilling over from America
BBC is in Serbian from now on and on YouTube, follow us HERE.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube i Viber. If you have a topic suggestion for us, please contact bbcnasrpskom@bbc.co.uk
Bonus video:
