US and Ecuador Team Up to Out-Narco Narcos in a Telenovela Season Finale

KEY POINTS

•Marine Gen. Francis Donovan met Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa in Quito on Sunday and Monday to discuss security cooperation.
•The joint operation targeted the Los Lobos cartel, seizing 6 tons of cocaine and arresting 16 suspects across Europe and Ecuador.
•The crackdown, publicly announced in early March, reflects a new phase of collaboration against narco-terrorism and illegal mining.

In a plot twist that reads like Marvel introducing its own cartel Avengers, U.S. Southern Command's Marine Gen. Francis Donovan cozied up with Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa in Quito last weekend to plot a blockbuster March crackdown. Their guest stars? Europol, DEA’s Europe division, and Ecuador’s brave troops. Together, they nabbed 16 suspects and seized 6 tons of cocaine tied to Hernán Ruilova Barzola’s Los Lobos cartel—basically the Avengers of illegal mining and drug trafficking. Noboa announced the 'new phase against drug terrorism' on Facebook, which might beat announcing your vacation. Southern Command called the alliance a 'powerful commitment,' sounding way more like a Dr. Seuss villain mascot than a military operation.