Ten working fishing boats out of Manta are now blocked property of the United States government.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control announced on 20 August that it had designated 15 Ecuador-based individuals and entities and identified 10 commercial fishing vessels tied to them. Treasury's case is that the fleet was cover. The boats transferred cocaine at sea to go-fast power boats bound north through the Eastern Pacific, refuelled and resupplied those boats, and kept watch for law enforcement while doing it. Several ran on government-subsidised fuel. Once the loads reached Mexico, the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion handled distribution into the US.
"Operating under the guise of legitimate fishing businesses, a fleet of Ecuador-based vessels near Manta, Ecuador, secretly transfers cocaine to small power boats — known as go-fast vessels — that transit north through the Eastern Pacific Ocean, en route to the United States," the Treasury Department said.
The named parties are affiliated with Los Choneros and Los Lobos, designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the State Department in September 2025. A family business sits at the centre of it: Arcasdenoe S.A., run by Alfonso Mero Mero with his sons Roberth Alfonso Mero Arcentales and Edwar Alexis Mero Arcentales, with six vessels attached. One of them, the Todos Vuelven, allegedly carried multi-tonne loads directly rather than just servicing other boats. Julio Javier Mero Franco was designated over an alleged 30 to 40 tonnes of cocaine coordinated per month for Los Choneros. Jimmy Leonidas Alarcon Holguin and Byron Aldino Mero Bermello were named over refuelling, with Alarcon Holguin linked to six commercial entities including Alho Fish, S.A. and Soisamar, S.A.S.
"Under President Trump's leadership, Treasury is relentlessly targeting the narcoterrorist networks that profit from poisoning Americans," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. "Working alongside our law enforcement partners, we will continue to disrupt the cartels' drug trafficking operations and protect our borders."
The State Department put the scale in revenue, saying the operations "generate billions of dollars annually for cartels responsible for a significant share of the deadly drugs flowing into our communities," and adding that "the United States will continue to use all our tools to dismantle the cartels profiting at the expense of American lives."
What should interest anyone in the commercial fleet is the instrument, not the allegation. Blocking a named hull effectively retires it. The vessel cannot be sold or insured through any institution with US exposure, and foreign banks handling transactions for designated parties risk secondary sanctions. OFAC says it deliberately goes after enablers and "ostensibly legitimate front persons" rather than only gang leadership, and it has taken close to 30 such actions against more than 300 targets since the start of 2025.
The designations follow a year of hard interdiction. Operation Pacific Viper, the Coast Guard campaign launched in August 2025, had seized more than 225,000 pounds of cocaine — about 112 tonnes — in the Eastern Pacific as of June 2026. Treasury credited Homeland Security Task Force-Tampa, Joint Interagency Task Force-South, the DEA, the Florida National Guard Counterdrug Program, US Southern Command, the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Coast Guard.
That campaign has also been lethal. The Associated Press noted the sanctions arrive as US strikes on fishermen in the Caribbean and Pacific have killed more than 200 people. When smuggling hides inside a real fishery, the real fishery absorbs the enforcement, and that is the cost Manta's legitimate operators are carrying.
Ecuador's government is expanding the effort regardless. Defence Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo said on Thursday, after meeting US Southern Command chief General Francis Donovan in Manta, that two US warships with interceptor boats and helicopters would patrol Ecuadorian territorial waters.
"This means we will triple our interdiction capabilities in the maritime zone," Loffredo said. "Three Black Hawk helicopters are in Manta and will be conducting operations."
No start date was given. Ecuador, sitting between the world's two largest cocaine producers, logged 50 murders per 100,000 residents last year.
