By Ingrid "Shortwave" Frost
Marines and sailors off the USS San Antonio stopped a boat in the Eastern Pacific this week, boarded it, searched it, and sank it. U.S. Southern Command says the vessel was a floating refueling station supporting the Los Choneros organization, an Ecuadorian gang Washington has designated a narco-terrorist group.
Video released by the military shows the boarding operation and the vessel going under. Southern Command frames the sinking as part of a broader campaign to choke off the maritime supply lines that keep South American drug-trafficking networks moving product north — refueling boats like this one let smaller smuggling vessels travel farther without stopping at port, where they're easier to intercept.
What isn't in the public record yet: who was aboard the boat, whether anyone was detained, or what evidence beyond the vessel's alleged function ties it specifically to Los Choneros. Southern Command's own account is, for now, the only account. That's worth naming plainly — this is a military press operation, not an independent verification of the gang's involvement.
Los Choneros has been at the center of Ecuador's spiraling gang violence in recent years, a conflict that spilled into open urban warfare and prompted the government in Quito to declare an internal armed conflict against organized crime. Washington's terrorist designation for the group opened the door to this kind of direct military action against its logistics network, rather than treating it as strictly a law-enforcement matter.
It's the latest in a string of similar strikes and boardings in the region this year, part of a Southern Command posture that has grown more aggressive against alleged narco-trafficking targets at sea.
FILED FROM SOMEWHERE WITH BAD COFFEE -
— Compiled from reporting by Al Jazeera, Fox News and the Washington Examiner.
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