The U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said that a “floating refueling station supporting illicit at-sea drug trafficking operations in the Eastern Pacific” was intercepted and destroyed by U.S. forces on Monday.
SOUTHCOM said the action was taken by Joint Task Force – Western Hemisphere (JTF-WHEM) based on intelligence that “confirmed the vessel’s involvement with the Los Choneros violent narco-terrorist organization.”
“Individuals removed from the vessel will be transferred to Ecuadorian authorities. After clearing the vessel and disembarking the crew, U.S. forces sank it,” the statement said.
JTF-WHEM is a new command that was activated by SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan in August 2026 to “counter threats, strengthen regional security, and respond rapidly to crises across the Western Hemisphere.”
Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Kevin Jarrard was selected as the first commander of JTF-WHEM. Jarrard’s previous assignment was leading disaster relief operations by the U.S. military after the June 2026 earthquake in Venezuela.
The new joint task force was conceived as a larger, multinational successor to Operation Southern Spear, the seaborne drug interdiction effort that began in January 2025 and was expanded into a joint task force operation in November 2025.
Los Choneros is an Ecuadoran organized crime gang that began as a local menace in the 1990s. The name is derived from the town of Chone in Ecuador’s Manabi province, where the gang got its start.
After the top leaders of Los Choneros were arrested in a 2011 crackdown, they worked behind bars to recruit smaller gangs and build a transnational criminal operation.
Los Choneros is noted for displaying extreme violence toward its rivals, and fighting vicious internal battles for control after its top leaders are killed or arrested. The gang was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in September 2025.
Rubio noted that Los Choneros and another gang he designated as terrorists, Los Lobos, were determined to “control drug trafficking routes through Ecuador by terrorizing and inflicting brutal violence on the Ecuadorian people.”
Both gangs have greatly increased their wealth and power by partnering with other cartels. Los Choneros is effectively the logistical arm of Mexico’s infamous Sinaloa Cartel.
Monday’s action was the fifth time in the past two months the U.S. military has intercepted a “refueling vessel” operated by Los Choneros in the Eastern Pacific.
“We are taking decisive action to dismantle and destroy sophisticated logistics networks used by narco-terrorists to traffic drugs and spread violence throughout the Western Hemisphere,” Gen. Donovan said last week.