cartels

Aug. 21 (UPI) — Ecuador’s Defense Ministry said it is conducting joint military operations with the U.S. Southern Command against drug cartels near the border with Colombia.

The operations are concentrated primarily in the coastal province of Esmeraldas, which has been plagued by killings, kidnappings and extortion by drug trafficking groups that use Pacific ports to ship drugs to the United States and Europe.

Ecuadorian Defense Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo confirmed the arrival of three Black Hawk helicopters and two U.S. warships at the port of Manta as part of an effort to triple maritime patrol capabilities against drug-running boats.

“We are going to triple our interdiction capabilities in the maritime zone,” Loffredo said in a video posted on X with military-style music playing in the background.

The operations come after the Ecuadorian government issued a decree this week allowing U.S. military personnel to remain in Ecuador for up to 180 days without visas and granting them exemptions from immigration requirements, local broadcaster Teleamazonas reported.

The operations are part of the “Shield of the Americas” alliance, a U.S.-led coalition of about 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries aimed at combating drug trafficking.

U.S. Southern Command personnel have been operating in Esmeraldas for some time, provincial Gov. Juan Jaramillo told local reporters.

Jaramillo did not say when U.S. personnel were deployed, how many are participating in the operations or how long they will remain in the province.

The governor said U.S. military personnel have conducted intelligence operations alongside the Ecuadorian Navy and will focus primarily on San Lorenzo and Eloy Alfaro, areas affected by drug trafficking and illegal mining, La FM reported.

Jaramillo also highlighted Colombia’s participation in the security operations, saying police and armed forces from both countries are sharing intelligence, information and operational targets.

The governor linked the cooperation to Colombia’s new political landscape after Abelardo de la Espriella’s inauguration as president of the neighboring country.

Washington and Quito have conducted joint operations for months targeting criminal groups in Ecuador as the country struggles with a wave of violence.

Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has pursued a tough-on-crime strategy since taking office in 2023. However, the country’s homicide rate has remained high, reaching a record 52 killings per 100,000 people last year.

Sheinbaum has denounced remarks from DEA head Terry Cole as a baseless ‘political statement’ about Mexico.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has rejected a claim from the head of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that there is a deadly connection between her government and the country’s influential criminal cartels.

During her daily news conference on Wednesday, Sheinbaum pushed back, saying the DEA’s remarks seemed “more ‌like a political statement than one backed by evidence”.

She added that the DEA should focus on combating drug trafficking, distribution and money laundering within its own country. The US, she pointed out, is the world’s largest market for illicit drugs.

Sheinbaum has repeatedly faced accusations under US President Donald Trump that her country is “run” by cartels.

Several Trump officials have mirrored that assertion. On Tuesday, for instance, DEA Administrator Terry Cole said ⁠the Mexican government and cartel networks were “one and the same”.

The Mexican government responded by saying Cole’s remarks did not reflect its efforts to work with the US to combat cartels.

It added that Mexico continues to be willing to collaborate with the US to combat crime, as long as its sovereignty was respected.

Since Trump took office for a second term, Sheinbaum has faced pressure from her northern neighbour to crack down on crime in her country.

In response, she has pledged close cooperation with the US, while pushing back against Trump’s militaristic approach to Latin America.

Her administration has repeatedly rejected the prospect of the US conducting military operations on its soil without the federal government’s consent.

Initially, Trump and Sheinbaum appeared to forge warm relations, with the US president praising his Mexican counterpart as “marvellous”.

But Sheinbaum has become increasingly vocal in her criticism of the Trump administration in recent months.

In April, for instance, she rebuked the US for issuing an indictment against ⁠Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha, amid allegations his campaign worked with the Sinaloa Cartel to violently influence the 2021 gubernatorial election.

Sheinbaum said no evidence had been produced to back the US’s claim against Rocha. She also argued that rooting out corruption was a domestic issue, not an international one.

Earlier this week, Mexico filed criminal complaints with US prosecutors over the deaths of ‌Mexican ‌nationals swept up in Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

Sheinbaum’s remarks on Wednesday came as the US Department of the Treasury announced that two more criminal organisations in Mexico — the Juarez Cartel and Los Viagras — had been designated “foreign terrorist ⁠organizations and specially ⁠designated global ⁠terrorists”.

The Trump administration has made such designations in the past, as it has sought to frame its actions in Latin America as a war on so-called “narco-terrorists”.

Johannesburg, South Africa – In the quiet mining town of Swartruggens, a small courthouse is preparing to decide whether five Mexicans accused of a major illegal drug operation will be granted bail or remain in custody.

Their arrests followed a raid on a remote farm in North West province, where police said they uncovered a large methamphetamine laboratory worth about one billion rand ($60m).

The case is one of several pointing to a pattern taking shape in South Africa’s rural interior.

The Swartruggens laboratory was not an isolated discovery.

It was one of four major meth sites linked to Mexican criminals uncovered in South Africa in just two years, a pattern that has unsettled investigators and organised crime experts.

In 2024, police dismantled a large meth facility worth about $105–110 million on a farm near Groblersdal in Limpopo. Later that year, another laboratory worth roughly $5–6 million was discovered near Tshwane, followed by arrests last year in Mpumalanga.

Then came Swartruggens.

When police moved in on the North West farm in May, they found 481 kilos of methamphetamine, containers of chemicals and firearms. Among those arrested were Mexican nationals Fabian Astorga, Jesus Alonso Medina Astorga, Luis Alberto Ramirez Rios, Jose Andres Medina and Jacquelin Lopez Madrid, alongside co-accused South Africans.

All the sites followed the same pattern: remote farmland, long distances from towns and enough isolation for criminal activity to go undetected.

For investigators, the pattern is becoming harder to ignore.

Mexicans are increasingly being found working alongside local collaborators in rural production sites, suggesting a shift from trafficking meth into Africa to producing it there.

Organised crime researcher Julian Rademeyer told Al Jazeera the model reflects a deliberate strategy.

“It’s quite a unique development where you have members of Mexican drug cartels franchising, moving chemists into remote rural areas and farms,” he said.

The approach has been building for more than a decade, he added.

The logic is straightforward: produce closer to consumers, cut transport costs and reduce exposure to border and maritime enforcement.

How it spread

Mexican-linked networks in Africa did not begin in South Africa.

Researchers trace early activity back to Nigeria, where local groups were producing meth with Mexican involvement by around 2016.

From there, the networks spread through East Africa, then south through Mozambique and Botswana, before reaching South Africa more recently.

For years, users on the streets spoke of “Mexican meth”, often assumed to be imported. That supply chain has now shifted inward.

“Now, basically, the cartel chemists are being sent here,” Rademeyer told Al Jazeera.

Analysts say multiple supply routes now feed the South African market, but the most significant change is the rise of local production.

Who looks the other way

Methamphetamine dominates parts of South Africa’s illicit drug market because cheaper drugs such as cocaine and heroin remain out of reach for many users, creating steady demand for a cheaper, highly addictive stimulant.

Crime expert Willem Els says demand is only part of the story.

“The main reason why manufacturing locally is lucrative to cartels is the local conditions that exist, where there is protection from corrupt police and politicians,” he told Al Jazeera.

“It is very lucrative. The cartels can make a lot of money because South African conditions result in undetected and protected operations.”

A separate commission of inquiry into law enforcement has heard testimony alleging deep corruption within policing structures, including missing drug consignments and suspected inside involvement in major cases.

One case under scrutiny involves 541 kilos of cocaine seized in 2021 and later stolen from a police facility, in what investigators believe was an inside job.

Former Interpol ambassador Andy Mashiale told Al Jazeera the problem is visible on the ground.

“There is no way in which police don’t know those labs,” he said. “So corruption plays a role.”

He said officers deployed to rural areas were often aware of suspicious activity but failed to act.

“What inspires the drug manufacturers or the drug cartels is the willingness of the police to enable the drug trade from happening,” he said.

South Africa’s elite Hawks unit says recent raids show progress in disrupting networks, while international partners, including the US Drug Enforcement Administration, have provided intelligence linking some suspects to the Sinaloa Cartel.

But investigators warn that the system behind the labs is resilient.

A frontier that keeps moving

US Africa Command officials have warned that Mexican cartels are now not only moving drugs through Africa, but also producing them on the continent.

For South Africa, the challenge is no longer just border control, it is institutional capacity, intelligence and corruption within the system meant to contain it.

Without deeper reform, analysts warn, the pattern is likely to continue: new farms, new labs, new chemists arriving quietly in rural provinces.

For the five men in Swartruggens, the question is immediate, whether they will be released.

For South Africa, the question is larger and more difficult: how to contain a trade that is no longer arriving at its borders, but taking root in the country.

Rademeyer says the structure is built to absorb disruption.

“It’s a game of whack-a-mole,” he told Al Jazeera. “You seize a meth lab here, you seize a meth lab there. They’ll spring up elsewhere.”