‘One more trip and I’ll stop’

“One more trip,” he says. “And then I’ll stop.”

‘One more trip and I’ll stop’

Inside the world of Ecuador’s cocaine coast, where a network built on stealth and speed helps fishermen smuggle drugs while law enforcement tries to stop them.

The coastal city of Manta, in Ecuador, went from a quiet tuna fishing port to a cocaine trafficking center, where fishermen are used as mules or traffickers, driven by the cartels that generate the increase of violence in the country, while the government of Daniel Noboa promotes a U.S. military base in the region. This way of getting easy money in the face of a severely beaten economy, contemplates the design of routes, tactics and even escape …

On Ecuador’s cocaine coast, with a fisherman who turned to smuggling

“One more trip,” he says. “And then I’ll stop.” He’s a fisherman by trade, born and raised in the coastal city of Manta — a place once known for tuna and tranquility. But these days, the fish are harder to find. The trips are longer. And the money, he says, just isn’t there anymore. “As a fisherman, in a month you can make $300,” he says. “But with the drug, the white one… that’s the money, brother!” One trip, running cocaine by sea to Mexico, p…