{"id":79693,"date":"2025-07-04T16:03:40","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T14:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/?p=79693"},"modified":"2025-07-04T17:04:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T15:04:14","slug":"three-tons-of-cocaine-seized-in-ecuador-authorities-it-belongs-to-the-albanian-mafia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/three-tons-of-cocaine-seized-in-ecuador-authorities-it-belongs-to-the-albanian-mafia\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Tons of Cocaine Seized in Ecuador, Authorities: It Belongs to the Albanian Mafia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"92\" data-end=\"282\">Three tons of cocaine have been seized in Ecuador, with authorities stating that the shipment belongs to the Albanian mafia, which is reportedly linked to Colombian and Mexican drug cartels.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"284\" data-end=\"374\">The narcotics were discovered on Thursday at a farm in the southwestern city of Guayaquil.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"376\" data-end=\"658\">A large-scale anti-drug operation was launched involving both police and military forces.<br data-start=\"465\" data-end=\"468\" \/>The police chief of Guayaquil stated that the cocaine was hidden inside a truck loaded with banana crates, with the packages labeled with various logos and prepared for shipment to the port.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"660\" data-end=\"736\">Following the raid at the farm, Ecuadorian police arrested five individuals.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"738\" data-end=\"811\">The confiscated cocaine has an estimated street value of <strong data-start=\"795\" data-end=\"810\">$90 million<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"813\" data-end=\"1011\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\">The Ministry of Defense described the operation as a major blow to the Albanian mafia.<br data-start=\"899\" data-end=\"902\" \/>Authorities continue their investigation to identify and apprehend other individuals involved in the network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three tons of cocaine have been seized in Ecuador, with authorities stating that the shipment belongs to the Albanian mafia, which is reportedly linked to Colombian and Mexican drug cartels. The narcotics were discovered on Thursday at a farm in the southwestern city of Guayaquil. A large-scale anti-drug operation was launched involving both police and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":79694,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[153,1803],"tags":[243,151],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Three Tons of Cocaine Seized in Ecuador, Authorities: It Belongs to the Albanian Mafia - Euronews Albania<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/three-tons-of-cocaine-seized-in-ecuador-authorities-it-belongs-to-the-albanian-mafia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Three Tons of Cocaine Seized in Ecuador, Authorities: It Belongs to the Albanian Mafia - Euronews Albania\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Three tons of cocaine have been seized in Ecuador, with authorities stating that the shipment belongs to the Albanian mafia, which is reportedly linked to Colombian and Mexican drug cartels. The narcotics were discovered on Thursday at a farm in the southwestern city of Guayaquil. 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