Ecuador: laundromat for transnational drug cartels

Editor's note: All this time it was thought Ukraine was the world's largest money laundering center. Turns out Ecuador is so much so in fact that Ecuador isn't a country. It is a global drug trade and money laundering operation on an industrial scale. Imagine the amounts of money these people involved in this supply chain are raking in daily? It seems if President Trump & Co. are considering going after drug cartels with drones Ecuador would be a prime target for drone strikes. Fentanyl right, but what about the estimated several thousand tons of cocaine transiting through the US every year? There are hundreds of billions of dollars in cash plowing through the drug trade and that cash has to be laundered somewhere. This amount of cash corresponds with the increasing amounts of cocaine production that in 2023 increased by an estimated 53 percent.

News update for 14 April 2025: Daniel Noboa's electoral theft will cement cartel and corporate control over Ecuador.

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VIDEO: Bombshell investigation exposes Ecuadorian president's cartel conspiracy

By Oscar Leon | April 9, 2025

An investigative report has placed Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa at the center of a vast conspiracy to transform his government into a laundromat for transnational drug cartels.

The Grayzone spoke to Andres Duran, the journalist who broke the bombshell story, and who had to go into exile to save his own life.

 

Ecuador teeters on the edge of a narco abyss, awash in violence, and with its dollarized economy and strategic ports transformed into a cocaine highway through Guayaquil to Europe and beyond.

President Daniel Noboa, heir to a banana empire exporting $3.5 billion yearly, presides over a nation where austerity has gutted state power, leaving a void which cartels eagerly fill. Guayaquil, handling 70% of exports, is a sieve.

Over 600 kilos of cocaine linked to Noboa Trading S.A. were seized between 2020 and 2024, bound for Croatia and Italy, yet no one has been held accountable. This isn't chaos; it's a system, one where narco cash—billions in U.S. dollars—props up a fragile state too broke to print its own money.

To understand Ecuador's crisis, we must first grasp the following: you can only buy drugs using cash.

Consequently, that cash is drained from the economic system into the underworld. It's like trying to keep a bowl full when it has a hole; you need to find a way to plug it back into the system. Our economic and social systems depend on it, because to replace it, printing money would cause inflation and dilute the current supply at an alarming rate.

So the system needs that money back.

The parallels to Wachovia's 2008 banking scandal are stark, because shutting the bank down risked economic collapse after "dark cash" ceased to flow back and caused a shortage. Ecuador's austerity, imposed since dollarization in 2000, mirrors this: after years of deep cuts, powerless police and control agencies show a state crippled, not careless and an economic and political empire, also, "too big to fail".

In his "war on gangs," President Noboa has carefully avoided the Sinaloa, CJNG, and Balkan cartels. Is it possible he cut some kind of backroom deal to keep drugs and cash moving while he crushes dissent?

The 2023 assassination of the anti-corruption crusader and presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio by the cartel known as Los Lobos, clearly demonstrated the price of defying the cartels. Ecuador is now ruled by a narco-political order where cash trumps justice, and austerity ensures the state will not fight back.

Cartels exploit decades of cuts, making Ecuador a laundering hub, its dollarized veins pumping narco wealth into a global system that desperately needs it.

Andrés Durán, an Ecuadorian reporter exiled after exposing Noboa's links, uncovered a state complicit in its own undoing.

OSCAR LEON: "Andrés, thanks for joining us.”

ANDRES DURAN: "Thank you, Oscar, thank you to The Grayzone. I'm here to share what I’ve uncovered.”

OSCAR LEON: "Thank you, Andres. During the presidential debate, Luisa González grilled Daniel Noboa about his family's company trafficking cocaine—not once, but multiple times."

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LUISA GONZALES: …My question is clear—are you or are you not the owner of Noboa Trading, the company that exported cocaine-laced bananas in 2020, 2022, and 2024—while you were already president? Five prosecutors have been replaced, and still no answers."

PRESIDENT DANIEL NOBOA: "No."

DEBATE HOST: "Candidate Noboa, you have one minute to explain your answer."

PRESIDENT DANIEL NOBOA: "No, I'm not the owner—but members of my family are."

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OSCAR LEON: "He denies ownership, yet he said it's his family's. Can you unpack the importance of that?"

ANDRES DURAN: "Absolutely. My investigation—conducted with journalists across Latin America—uncovered a scandal the Ecuadorian media tried to bury. Noboa Trading, linked to President Noboa through Inmobiliaria Zeus S.A. (Ecuador) and Lanfranco Holding S.A. (Panamá), was caught red-handed trafficking cocaine: 167 kilos in 2020, 400 kilos in 2022, and 78 kilos in 2024, all en route to Italy and Croatia.

This isn't speculative intelligence like Lasso's León de Troya—it's a blatant crime. And Noboa himself admitted on live TV that the company belongs to his family—a confession with explosive political, legal, and reputational consequences."

Before the president's slip-up during the debate, these were only suspected shell companies.

The company controls farms, trucks, and port access. On March 29, Raya magazine confirmed Durán's findings: several police documents directly implicated Noboa Trading, making this the first case to directly link an Ecuadorian president to drug trafficking—further fueling suspicions of a cartel-state alliance.

On April 3rd, Agência Pública (Brazil) reported that Noboa and his brother own 51% of Lanfranco Holdings, which in turn owns Noboa Trading and hundreds of other companies—an apparent attempt to conceal the president's influence, business interests, and tax responsibilities. Noboa, notably, owes $89 million in taxes and fees to the very state he governs.

This report confirms Durán's long-standing investigations into the matter.

ANDRES DURAN: "We need to add more disturbing facts and connect the dots. First, under the current president, only $5,677 was allocated to the National Police's Ports and Airports Intelligence Unit—just over $5,000! This is the budget given to one of the most critical units fighting organized crime in the country's ports.

Second, regarding the 2022 case: at the time, Daniel Noboa was an assembly member representing Santa Elena province. He asked his top advisor to act as the legal representative for the only defendant in all three Noboa Trading cases—Mr. José Luis R. That advisor is now the current Minister of Health, Mr. Edgar José Lama Von Buchwald."

Durán points out that just a month after the arrest, the case was closed when State Attorney Julio Sánchez, who has been linked to the Los Choneros gang, refused to press charges against José Luis R., whose sole job is to be the legal representative responsible for the company, during container inspections. Consequently, José Luis R. was legally deemed not responsible for the "drug contamination." Yet despite this, the case was closed, and no investigation was launched to identify the actual perpetrators.

ANDRES DURAN: "So while Noboa publicly claims, 'It's not my company, I have nothing to do with it… but my relatives are involved,' we must ask: if it’s not his company, why did he assign his top advisor to defend the sole suspect in the case?

At the time, Lama Von Buchwald was Noboa's closest advisor, and yet he became the legal representative for the only defendant in the Noboa Trading cocaine trafficking cases—despite being a public official, which legally disqualified him from serving as a defense attorney.

These are just some of the irregularities. And to all that, let's add another name: Ms. María Beatriz Moreno Heredia—accused of illicit trafficking of controlled substances. What exactly was her role?”

María Beatriz Moreno, national president of ADN, has been charged, along with four others, with the alleged crime of illicit trafficking of controlled substances since August 2024, when she was arrested in connection with the seizure of 1.3 tons of cocaine. Moreno, who was released the same night, also serves as manager of other companies in the Noboa group, such as Nobexport S.A and even Vinazín S.A, and Agroindustrias San Esteban C.A., which have been recently involved in corruption scandals.

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