United States Drug Enforcement Administration

NEW YORK — The Justice Department announced today the unsealing of charges against, and the arrests of, five Ecuadorian nationals who conspired to import vast quantities of cocaine into the United States for more than a decade. The defendants include a former member of Ecuador’s National Assembly, a former Ecuadorian mayor and current mayoral candidate, the son of the former president of Ecuador, and other powerful narcotraffickers.

“The charges announced today represent a coordinated effort to dismantle political corruption and narcotics trafficking that had wreaked havoc in Ecuador and plagued the country with increasing violence in recent years,” said U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald for the Southern District of New York. “As alleged in the Indictment, the defendants played a critical role in transforming the country into a major transit hub for 70 percent of the cocaine reaching the United States and Europe. These prosecutions hold accountable powerful politicians and narcotraffickers alike who profited from and facilitated the international narcotics trade and who degraded Ecuador’s internal security.”

“Political influence, financial resources, and powerful connections do not place anyone beyond the reach of American justice,” said DEA Administrator Terrance Cole. “Those who exploit legitimate businesses to move cocaine toward our communities should understand that DEA will follow the evidence, expose their networks, and work with our international partners to bring them before the courts. No title, fortune, or family connection changes that commitment.”

Ecuador sits at the heart of the global cocaine trade. Situated between two of the world’s largest cocaine-producing countries, hundreds of tons of cocaine are exported each year out of Ecuador’s main seaports, including from the coastal cities of Manta, in Manabi Province, and Guayaquil, in Guayas Province. Cocaine traffickers operating in Ecuador and the broader region exploit legal commercial maritime routes to conceal their narcotics, using container ships and other commercial vessels transporting legitimate commodities, including seafood, bananas, timber, and minerals, as well as an extensive network of fishing vessels and “go-fast” boats, to smuggle cocaine to the United States and other international markets. Image 1 depicts the movement of cocaine from Colombia and Peru, through Ecuador, and on to international destinations, including the United States:

Like other countries in the region, Ecuador is beset by rampant corruption and partnerships between politicians and large-scale narcotics traffickers. As alleged, two such politicians are Jaime Estrada Medranda and Jaime Estrada Bonilla. Medranda and Bonilla have long partnered with some of the region’s largest and most violent drug traffickers to ship massive quantities of cocaine out of Ecuador to the United States and elsewhere, contributing to the deteriorating internal security of Ecuador and the corruption of its political systems.

In Ecuador’s National Assembly, Medranda represented a district within the province of Manabi that includes the coastal city of Manta — the center of Ecuador’s tuna-processing industry and home to one of Ecuador’s largest ports, which serves as a major transit point for the global cocaine supply. Bonilla, who is Medranda’s father, was the former mayor of Manta, is currently running for the same office, and was former President of the Port Authority of Manta. Medranda and Bonilla are also owners and executives of a major Manta-based seafood company and an Ecuadorian professional soccer club. For years, as alleged, Medranda and Bonilla have smuggled vast quantities of cocaine disguised within their seafood company’s shipments out of Ecuador in partnership with large-scale drug traffickers, including the leaders of violent drug trafficking and designated foreign terrorist organizations such as Los Choneros and Los Lobos. Many of the cocaine loads they have conspired to export were sourced from paramilitary groups operating in the jungles of Colombia.

To minimize the risk to themselves, Medranda and Bonilla allegedly have relied on trusted intermediaries to meet with drug traffickers, receive payments, and coordinate the logistics of receiving, packing, and smuggling cocaine out of Ecuador using containers packed with legitimate goods, such as tuna. For example, in or about 2026, Medranda and Bonilla sent their representatives Geovanny Fernandez Menendez and William Jose Briones Lopez to meet with Jacobo Abdala Bucaram-Pulley — an alleged Ecuadorian drug and firearms trafficker and the son of the former President of Ecuador — to negotiate the export of a purported two-ton load of cocaine from Ecuador to Mexico, for further shipment to the United States.

In another example, in or about 2023, the seafood exporting company of Medranda and Bonilla was used to ship ton-quantity loads of cocaine out of Ecuadorian seaports. From one such shipment, on or about May 27, 2023, the Ecuadorian National Police seized approximately 1,444 kilograms of cocaine inside of the company’s shipping container at the Port of Guayaquil. Image 2 depicts the cocaine seized from the company’s shipping container.

Jaime Estrada Medranda, 41, Jaime Estrada Bonilla, 71, Jacobo Abdala Bucaram-Pulley, 48, Geovanny Fernandez Menendez, 53, and William Jose Briones Lopez, 47, all of Ecuador, are charged with participating in a conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, which carries a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years in prison and a maximum penalty of life; possession of machineguns, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison and a maximum penalty of life; and conspiracy to possess machineguns, which carries a maximum penalty of life.

The mandatory minimum and maximum potential sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendants will be determined by a judge.

Jaime Estrada Medranda and Jaime Estrada Bonilla were arrested on or about Nov. 2, while traveling in Panama.

Jacobo Abdala Bucaram-Pulley, Geovanny Fernandez Menendez, and William Jose Briones Lopez were arrested on or about Nov. 4, in Ecuador.

Mr. McDonald praised the outstanding efforts of the DEA’s Special Operations Division Bilateral Investigations Unit. Mr. McDonald also thanked the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, which provided significant assistance in securing the arrests of the defendants, the DEA Country Offices in Quito and Panama City, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Embassy in Quito. Mr. McDonald also praised the significant assistance provided by the Government of Ecuador and the Government of Panama.

This prosecution is being handled by the Office’s National Security and International Narcotics Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jonathan L. Bodansky, Jane Y. Chong, Jeffrey W. Coyle, and Varun A. Gumaste for the Southern District of New York are in charge of the prosecution.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Note: Read the indictment here.

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