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U.S. Southern Command announced Thursday that American naval forces operating under Operation Southern Spear intercepted and sank a floating narco-refueling station in the Eastern Pacific on September 3, targeting a logistics node supporting the Ecuadorian narco-terrorist organization Los Choneros.
The interdiction was ordered directly by SOUTHCOM Commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan in close coordination with the government of Ecuador. Littoral Combat Force 24 (LCF-24), launching from the amphibious transport dock USS San Antonio (LPD-17), executed the operation using an MH-60 Seahawk helicopter for airborne tracking, FLIR surveillance, and sniper overwatch, while rigid hull inflatable boats moved the boarding team onto the target vessel before it was scuttled.
Military intelligence confirmed prior to the interdiction that the target vessel was operating as a fuel supply node to high-speed drug-smuggling vessels transporting deadly drugs to the United States. The operation demonstrated the Trump Administration’s counter-narcotics campaign’s rapid-response doctrine now being employed in SOUTHCOM’s littoral regions.
The operation marked the resumption of active interdiction after a brief pause following a June 21 Caribbean strike. That pause was driven partly by forces being redirected to earthquake relief in Venezuela and Colombia, and partly to allow for a command restructuring: Joint Task Force Southern Spear has been folded into the larger Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, now headed by a two-star Marine general — a command elevation signaling the mission is broadening beyond its original maritime scope.
Since the campaign launched on September 2, 2025, American forces have interdicted, boarded, or sunk more than 65 cartel-affiliated vessels and logistics nodes across the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. Combined operations have eliminated 227 individuals connected to drug trafficking networks over the course of the year-long campaign.
Los Choneros is an Ecuadorian criminal syndicate that has rapidly grown its maritime drug trafficking operations through cartel alliances, exploiting Ecuador’s Pacific coastline as a major cocaine transit corridor to the United States and Europe. The sinking of their at-sea refueling station aims to degrade their ability to sustain long-range maritime drug trafficking operations.
