Balkan criminal profits are being laundered in Ecuador.

Ecuador has become a notorious hub for global cocaine trafficking in recent years. Boasting several key ports and perched between two of the world’s largest cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, the once peaceful country has become a strategic node for this booming illegal market. Linked to this, Ecuador has also become a money laundering hub, fuelled by dollarization and gaps in the regulation of its banking system.¹ Western Balkan criminal organizations are among the numerous foreign groups that have come to rely on Ecuador when sourcing cocaine, shipping it to Western Europe and laundering the proceeds.² All this has exacerbated violence within Ecuador, particularly among local gangs competing to supply drugs to foreign criminal groups.³

Integrating into local economies

Money laundering is the second most common criminal activity in Ecuador, behind only drug trafficking.⁴ It is estimated that US$3.5 billion was laundered through Ecuador’s financial system in 2021 alone, and the trend is upwards.⁵

To source and ship cocaine, criminal networks from the Western Balkans need to work with local criminal actors and brokers who reside in key transit locations close to supply sources. These brokers, many of whom operate from Ecuador, demand payment in advance.⁶ Money is often sent in cash, for example through traditional money transfer companies.⁷ Another method uses trade-based money laundering, where dirty money is moved through a company (often through fake invoices) as purported payment for legitimate (but non-existent) goods and services. As a result, substantial amounts of money from Europe and other regions are flowing into Ecuador to fund the purchase and shipment of cocaine. The recipients launder this cash through various channels, including by converting it into gold ingots.⁸

As is the case in many other countries, construction and real estate are also key channels for laundering proceeds. In some provinces of Ecuador, more than half of all houses are reportedly purchased in cash.⁹ Western Balkan criminals are reported to be snapping up luxury residences in upscale areas of Guayaquil province to launder illicit proceeds.¹⁰

Another tactic is to buy companies in the export industry, such as banana businesses.¹¹ This enables criminals to integrate into the licit local economy, launder their money and acquire strategically valuable assets that facilitate the export of cocaine in shipments of perishable fruit.

One case allegedly involves Dritan Gjika, an Albanian citizen who has lived in Ecuador for nearly a decade. There is currently an international arrest warrant out for Gjika, who is wanted for drug trafficking following a major police operation in Ecuador and Spain in February 2024.¹² According to Europol, Gjika was a leader of a criminal group that imported 4 tonnes of cocaine a month to Ecuador from Colombia, before shipping it to Europe and distributing it within the European Union. The organization used Ecuadorian fruit companies as a front to import the drugs.¹³ The operation led to the seizure of properties with a value of €48 million – €36 million worth in Ecuador and €12 million in Spain.

Cash seized during a police operation in Ecuador in February 2024, which led to the arrest of 30 alleged members of an Albanian criminal group.

Photo: Ecuador police courtesy of Primicias

In Ecuador, Gjika stands accused of hiding his criminal activities behind a net of companies. According to investigative media reports, Gjika and his business partner in Ecuador, Rubén Cherres — who was murdered in April 2023¹⁴ — had established 12 companies, most of them in the construction and real estate sectors.¹⁵ Eight of these companies were opened in a single day, taking advantage of the Society of Simplified Shares regulation that was established in January 2020 to simplify the procedures and costs of setting up a company in Ecuador.¹⁶ It is believed that his companies exporting various agricultural products, including bananas, were used to facilitate his drug trafficking operations.¹⁷

Gjika seems to have been adept at spotting opportunities. After Ecuador approved the production, commercialization, use and consumption of cannabis for medicinal or therapeutic purposes in September 2019,¹⁸ he established a company focused on the import, cultivation, harvesting, trading and storage of cannabis.

The Gjika case has attracted significant political and media attention in Ecuador, particularly because Cherres was reportedly a close friend of Danilo Carrera, the influential brother-in-law of former President Guillermo Lasso, who was in office between May 2021 and November 2023. The case was also cited in impeachment proceedings against Lasso.¹⁹

Another case involves Adriatik Tresa, an Albanian citizen who was murdered in a luxury villa in Guayaquil in 2020. Tresa was under investigation by Ecuadoran authorities for money laundering.²⁰ He was investigated and sentenced to one year in prison for money laundering in Ecuador in 2014.²¹ But he was later acquitted and deemed innocent following an appeal court verdict in 2016.²² He nevertheless continued his business operations in the country and in 2019 purchased shares in a pharmaceutical company.²³

In Ecuador, very few people arrested for money laundering are convicted. The country’s lenient sentencing and lax attitudes toward this crime appear to be exacerbating the problem. According to the Ecuadorian Observatory of Organized Crime, only 7% of individuals processed for money laundering were convicted between 2020 and 2022. Meanwhile, three out of every 10 individuals processed for money laundering (35.8%) were acquitted.²⁴

Go after the money, not just the drugs

The ability of Western Balkan criminal organizations to launder and integrate their illicit profits into Ecuador’s legal economy, supported by various favourable local policies and conditions, poses serious challenges for national and international law enforcement agencies. In addition to intercepting the flow of drugs from Ecuador to Europe, international law enforcement and local authorities must build on the seizure of properties in Spain and Ecuador earlier this year and work together to identify and disrupt the laundering of cocaine profits locally and internationally. Dismantling this financial infrastructure requires a coordinated effort among states, enhanced intelligence sharing and the implementation of stricter local financial controls.

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