OCCRP Report Follows Previous Reports of Cocaine Found in Noboa Trading Banana Shipments
For Immediate Release: December 4, 2025
Washington, DC — A new investigative report from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has uncovered new evidence that suggests that a company linked to Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa and his family may be involved in trafficking cocaine to Europe. The investigation by Stevan Dojcinovic, Nathan Jaccard, Dragana Peco, Brian Fitzpatrick, and Kevin G. Hall follows previous news reports on multiple seizures of cocaine that police have discovered hidden in Europe-bound banana shipments from the Noboa Trading Company. OCCRP reports that at least 26 million euros’ worth of cocaine has been found in Noboa Trading banana shipments.
“This is a hugely important story that has received little attention in English-language media outlets, despite ongoing reporting in Ecuadorian and other Latin American media and despite a damning report by Colombian outlet Revista RAYA earlier this year,” Jake Johnston, International Research Director for the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) said.
The OCCRP report is based on new evidence from encrypted messages among alleged organized crime figures in the Balkans, prosecutorial documents, shipping logs, and other material evidence. Investigative journalists were able to match specific deliveries that drug traffickers in Croatia were discussing in advance with Noboa Trading Company shipments that later departed from Ecuador. In messages examined by the journalists, a notorious Balkans organized crime figure discusses his group’s exclusive ability to smuggle cocaine in Noboa Trading shipments.
Among other details, Revista RAYA reported that a contractor for Noboa Trading, José Luis Rivera Baquerizo, had been arrested multiple times in Ecuador in connection with cocaine busts, and that in at least one instance Noboa’s then-advisor, and now head of Ecuador’s social security system, Edgar José Lama Von Buchwald, had secured the contractor’s release. Noboa’s cousin Roberto Jorge Ponce Noboa was CEO of Noboa Trading at the time of the drug seizures detailed in the RAYA report.
“The new disclosure comes at an awkward time for President Noboa, who has pitched himself as an anti-drug crusader, and earlier this year called on US and European armies to join his ‘war’ against what he called ‘narco-terrorists,’” the OCCRP report states.
“The revelations expose a massive conflict of interest for a president who has based his entire political career on a narrative of combating violence and curbing the corrosive influence of drug cartels,” Johnston is quoted as saying in the article.
While Daniel Noboa has denied knowledge of the drug smuggling and has distanced himself from Noboa Trading in public comments, OCCRP reports that “company records and the presidency’s own website show historical ties with him, and ongoing links to his family.”
“President Noboa’s father Alvaro Noboa, who unsuccessfully ran for the Ecuadorian presidency five times, leads both Noboa Corporation and Noboa Group, the umbrella companies for a vast business conglomerate that includes Noboa Trading, according to the websites of both Alvaro Noboa and the company,” OCCRP notes, adding that Daniel Noboa worked for the Noboa Corporation before successfully running for president. OCCRP explains other Noboa family members’ ties to the company at the time of the drug busts.
An organized crime expert told OCCRP that the evidence “indicate[s] that someone with control over the physical container-stuffing and departure process is complicit or has been captured by criminals.”
Noboa is a Trump ally and earlier this year Secretary of State Rubio spoke of the importance of his cooperation in combating drug trafficking in the region.
Last month, Noboa suffered the most serious political defeat of his presidency so far when voters overwhelmingly went against four referenda questions he had put forward, as CEPR Senior Research Fellow and former Foreign Minister of Ecuador Guillaume Long explains in Project Syndicate today. Noboa’s repeated states of “emergency” and draconian measures to crack down on crime have failed to lower the country’s record-high homicide rate.
CEPR has previously documented Daniel Noboa’s conflict of interest through his family’s partial ownership of a mining company that would stand to directly benefit from a trade agreement Noboa is seeking to finalize with Canada. Peru’s La Republica and Brazil’s Folha de São Paulo have reported on Noboa’s holdings of offshore assets, even though it is illegal for public office holders in Ecuador to have such assets.
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