“Noboa and Ecuador today export 70% of the cocaine consumed by the world. Most of it leaves on this criminal’s merchant ships and is packed in his banana facilities.”
On June 8, Monika Silva Koniuszek, a 41-year-old Polish journalist and activist, was discovered dead at her residence in Montañita, a coastal town in Ecuador’s Santa Elena province. The devoted mother of two daughters, aged four and nine, was found on the floor with a noose around her neck.
Initially, Ecuadorian authorities viewed the situation as straightforward. Just a day after Silva Koniuszek’s death, without waiting for autopsy results, Ecuador’s Minister of the Interior, John Reimberg, declared that the investigation was leaning towards suicide.
“We found the necessary evidence to support this conclusion at the scene,” he informed local media.
However, on June 19, an autopsy conducted in Guayaquil uncovered that the actual cause of death was a blow to the head along with strangulation.
“The forensic evidence confirms that this was a violent death, thus dismissing the suggestion of suicide,” stated attorney Lita Martínez, director of the Ecuadorian Centre for the Promotion and Action of Women.
As The Guardian reports, Silva Koniuszek had dedicated the last ten years of her life to investigating environmental crimes and corruption in Ecuador alongside local journalists. This pursuit earned her several powerful adversaries. In the months leading up to her death, she began probing into allegations involving Noboa Trading, the fruit conglomerate owned by the billionaire family of Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa.
💢 NEW: Anti-corruption Polish activist Monika Silva Koniuszek was murdered after investigating allegations involving Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s family business, including claims cocaine had been seized in banana shipments exported by Noboa Trading, her friends and… pic.twitter.com/vtzWWVai0H
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) June 23, 2026
Colleagues of Silva Koniuszek revealed that she was investigating claims that multiple tons of cocaine had been discovered in Noboa Trading banana containers. However, it seems that senior Ecuadorian judicial officials were obstructing the investigations.
“My investigation into drug trafficking in Ecuador revealed links to the Noboa Group; since then, I have continued to encounter challenges related to the Noboa Group,” Silva Koniuszek stated.
Before her demise, the activist-journalist confided to friends that she had handed a dossier of allegations to the US embassy in Quito, a risky move considering the CIA’s notorious history of backing drug cartels and corrupt authoritarian regimes in Latin America.
Silva Koniuszek’s tragic passing made headlines in her homeland of Poland, where skepticism surrounded the Ecuadorian government’s assertion that she had taken her own life. Her friend, Joanna Cuper, informed Polish broadcaster TVP Info that Silva Koniuszek felt she was “being followed and surveilled.” “None of us believe she committed suicide,” she emphasized.
Last week, the Polish prosecutor’s office confirmed that it had requested mutual legal assistance from Ecuadorian authorities regarding the investigation into Silva Koniuszek’s death and expressed its desire to be actively involved. The European Union’s Delegation in Ecuador has also called for a “swift” and “independent” investigation into the circumstances of her passing.
This raises an important question: how can Ecuadorian authorities be expected to conduct an “independent” investigation into Silva Koniuszek’s murder when one of the suspects is none other than the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, whose family business she was probing?
Ecuador: A Key Hub in the Cocaine Trade
Ecuador’s role in the drug trade has expanded dramatically over the past decade. Recent estimates show that over 70% of the world’s cocaine now transits through Ecuador’s ports en route to Western consumers. Once regarded as one of Latin America’s safest nations, Ecuador has now become one of its most perilous.
There are indications that a Panama-registered company linked to President Noboa is heavily implicated in this illegal trade. This issue first gained attention during a presidential debate in 2025 when challenger Luisa González accused Noboa of cocaine trafficking. Instead of refuting the claim, Noboa tacitly acknowledged instances of drug trafficking through his company’s shipments while denying any misconduct.
A March 2025 investigation by Colombian media outlet Revista Raya highlighted several cocaine seizures totaling 700 kilograms between 2020 and 2022.
Approximately 700 kilos of cocaine were seized at the port of Naportec, Guayaquil, by the Ports and Airports Intelligence Unit of the National Police (UIPA) between 2020 and 2022. These reports, originating from the Ecuadorian Police, had remained undisclosed due to the owners of the company from which the drugs were seized being the Noboa family—specifically, the family of President Daniel Noboa.
Official documents collected by RAYA detail how the cocaine was concealed within the banana containers of Noboa Trading and how one suspect was defended by Ecuador’s current Minister of Health, Edgar José Lama Von Buchwald.
Ecuadorian journalist Andrés Durán, who revealed parts of the investigation, faced death threats and legal harassment from the ruling political party, the National Democratic Action Movement (ADN), forcing him to leave the country. In a conversation with RAYA Magazine, Durán remarked, “This is the first documented case in Ecuador’s history involving a presidential family linked to cocaine trafficking. The Noboa family oversees the entire banana export process, from cultivation to transport. It’s clear that the death threats are directly tied to this investigation.”
In Ecuador, owning a company in a tax haven is illegal, providing sufficient grounds for disqualifying Noboa from the presidency. Additionally, it is noteworthy that the banana empire established by Noboa’s father, Alvaro Noboa, carries over $93 million in unpaid taxes owed to the Ecuadorian state.
In December 2025, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) brought further scrutiny upon Noboa by revealing that alleged Balkan drug traffickers claimed, in an encrypted conversation, to have “exclusive rights” to traffic cocaine hidden within export banana containers belonging to Noboa Corporation:
A confidential document from Croatia’s prosecutor’s office indicated that two individuals, identified only by anonymous PIN numbers, were boasting in encrypted chats that “no one but them” had permission to ship cocaine through the containers of Noboa Trading Co TCN S.A.
Noboa Trading is part of Noboa Corporation, a vast business empire that produces bananas under the Bonita brand, managed by President Daniel Noboa’s family. Neither Noboa Trading nor the president’s office provided comments on these allegations.
In their conversations, the alleged traffickers mentioned three specific cocaine shipments and provided details such as date and container number. Journalists verified this information against actual banana shipments from Noboa Trading.
For instance, they referenced a shipment of 430 kilos of cocaine concealed in container MEDU9747725, which was confirmed to have left Ecuador on January 25, 2021. Shipping records corroborated that Noboa Trading indeed sent that container on the stated date.
The three shipments, scrutinized by reporters from KRIK, OCCRP, and the Investigative Journalism Bureau—an independent Canadian journalism organization—originated from the port of Guayaquil in Ecuador.
This presents a significant point. A majority of the narcotics transported from Latin America to the United States and Europe is shipped via large vessels, rather than small fishing boats, as suggested by recent claims from former President Trump regarding a drastic decrease in maritime drug trafficking. Such assertions warrant skepticism.
Roberto Saviano, a journalist and author renowned for his works Gomorrah and Zero, Zero, Zero, highlighted the significance of efficient ports for the global drug trade in an interview with El Pais a decade ago:
“A slow port is as good as dead for narcos. A port that processes containers quickly is thriving. Hypothetically, if a port were to inspect all containers, no company would choose to use it. The faster the port, the better; this paradox fuels the drug trade.”
It is Ecuador’s extensive banana export industry, bolstered by its network of fast ports in Guayaquil, a dollarized economy, and geographic proximity to Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia—countries responsible for 99% of the global cocaine supply—that have solidified its stature as a pivotal hub in the international narcotics arena.
No one has greater control of Ecuador’s banana trade—covering cultivation, packaging, and transportation for export—than Noboa’s family enterprise, Corporación Noboa. Consequently, he could be viewed as one of the most influential drug traffickers in the world, according to veteran Colombian journalist Gonzalo Guillén.
Noboa and Ecuador currently export 70% of the world’s cocaine. Most of it sets sail on this criminal’s merchant vessels and is processed in his banana facilities.
In fact, he was inaugurated as president while visibly under the influence of cocaine, with a bag of the substance in plain sight from his jacket pocket. He is Ecuador’s equivalent of Pablo Escobar.
Most of his time in office has been spent abroad, negotiating with traffickers and safeguarding earnings from cocaine sales in tax havens.
He seldom takes a significant stand against drug trafficking, as it is his own enterprise. He occasionally targets smaller traffickers who compete with him, thereby maintaining his dominant role in drug trafficking.
Guillén is acclaimed for his courageous investigative journalism focusing on organized crime, drug trafficking, and elite-level corruption in Latin America, earning numerous accolades on both sides of the Atlantic. He has also had to go into exile due to the threats posed by figures like Alvaro Uribe, another notorious narco-president. In other words, Guillén speaks from a place of profound knowledge.
While several prominent drug cartel leaders in Latin America have been neutralized in recent years through the US government’s “kingpin” strategy—such as Ismael Mario Zambada García, also known as El Mayo, and Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho”—Noboa possesses an advantage that even Pablo Escobar could only dream about: direct access to state power, albeit one that is considerably weakened. Furthermore, he is brazenly wielding that power, as the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) reported recently:
President Daniel Noboa’s authoritarianism has intensified sharply lately, deepening a trend that began shortly after he assumed office in 2023. During his first term, heillegally dismissed his vice president and inspected the Mexican embassy. Subsequently, he hasthreatened judges of the Constitutional Court, imposed a prolonged state of emergency associated with gross human rights abuses, and taken measures that curtail civic space. In recent times, through both direct government initiatives and actions by loyalists within key institutions, he has successfully prevented opposition parties from contesting in upcoming local elections, pursued criminal cases against political rivals, and heightened pressure on judges.
Noboa’s backing extends beyond the Ecuadorian state; he also enjoys support from the US government and military, as long as he aligns with Washington’s interests. Recently, Noboa has welcomed not only US troops—despite Ecuador’s significant public opposition to the return of US military bases—but also various US government agencies, including the DEA and even the FBI.
In exchange, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio referred to Noboa’s regime as a “key ally” within Latin America. Rubio has a history of protecting “narco politicians” in the region and is seemingly intent on reviving a scenario reminiscent of the Iran-Contra affair, as reported by Maureen Tkacik in American Prospect.
Yet, Noboa should tread carefully. As former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger allegedly suggested, “It may be dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, but to be its friend can be fatal.”
As he intensifies his authoritarian maneuvers domestically, Noboa should remember the fate of previous US-aligned narco-presidents in Latin America. The downfall of Manuel Noriega serves as a classic example. The Panamanian leader was overthrown during the US-led invasion of Panama in 1989 and subsequently sentenced to multiple life terms for drug trafficking in a Florida court after he, once a CIA asset, ventured too far.
