U.S. military forces boarded, searched and sank a vessel operating as a floating refueling station for maritime drug traffickers in the eastern Pacific on Sept. 3, U.S. Southern Command announced, in an operation linked to intelligence on Los Choneros. The vessel’s activities were connected to Los Choneros, an Ecuadorian organization designated as a foreign terrorist group by Washington.
A Marine task force operating from the USS San Antonio conducted the boarding without incident, SOUTHCOM said. The people on board were removed and transferred to Ecuadorian authorities before U.S. forces sank the vessel. The operation was carried out in coordination with the Ecuadorian government.
SOUTHCOM said in a statement that the interdiction cuts off a critical node in the traffickers’ logistics chain and advances the goals of the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition and Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, two multilateral frameworks aimed at dismantling these networks.
Who Los Choneros are
The Los Choneros designation as a foreign terrorist organization was made by the United States in September 2025, along with another Ecuadorian group, Los Lobos. The designations followed a sharp escalation of cartel violence in Ecuador, including attacks on government officials, prison massacres and the assassination of a presidential candidate. Violence linked to these groups has been among the most severe.
Ecuador has experienced a dramatic deterioration in public security over the past several years as criminal organizations linked to international drug trafficking networks have expanded their operations, challenged state authority and turned the country into a transit point for cocaine shipments moving toward the United States and Europe.
The Americas Counter Cartel Coalition
The Americas Counter Cartel Coalition, known as A3C, was established in March 2026 as a military partnership between the United States and other Western Hemisphere nations to disrupt these operations across the region. The Sept. 3 operation against the refueling vessel linked to Los Choneros is one of the first publicly reported interdictions conducted under the A3C framework since its establishment.
Floating refueling stations extend the range of go-fast boats and semi-submersible vessels that move cocaine from South American source countries into Central American and eventually North American distribution networks. Taking them out disrupts operations for weeks or months by forcing networks to find alternatives.
The broader operation
Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, which coordinates with A3C, is the U.S. military‘s primary structure for counternarcotics missions in the region. Operations of this kind typically involve intelligence from multiple agencies, coordination with partner-nation governments and legal authority from those governments before U.S. forces act.
The Sept. 3 operation’s coordination with Ecuador reflects the bilateral security relationship that has deepened since Washington’s terrorist designations of Los Choneros and Los Lobos and Ecuador’s own declaration of an internal armed conflict in 2024.
