Encrypted communications between suspected Balkan drug traffickers in early 2021 reveal claims of exclusive access to cocaine smuggling operations using shipping containers from the Ecuadorian president’s family-owned banana company.
According to confidential Croatian prosecution documents, two individuals communicating through the Sky ECC encrypted platform boasted that only their organization was permitted to load cocaine into containers shipped by Noboa Trading Co. TCN S.A., a subsidiary of the Noboa Corporation conglomerate that exports bananas under the Bonita brand. President Daniel Noboa’s family operates the business.
The president’s office and Noboa Trading declined to comment on the allegations.
One of the encrypted chat participants has been identified through Serbian court records as Nikola Đorđević, a wanted organized crime figure facing unrelated cocaine smuggling charges in Serbia. Investigators matched three specific drug shipments referenced in the chats to actual Noboa Trading banana exports using shipping logs and customs data.
The shipments, dispatched from Ecuador’s Guayaquil port between late 2020 and early 2021, involved 535 kilograms of cocaine valued at approximately 26 million euros. Croatian authorities intercepted the final shipment containing 60 kilograms of cocaine at the Adriatic port of Ploče in March 2021.
Court documents indicate a separate Croatian criminal network, allegedly led by Petar Ćosić, was responsible for retrieving the drugs upon arrival. Ćosić currently faces trial for leading a criminal organization and smuggling hundreds of kilograms of cocaine.
Additional evidence suggests Ćosić was receiving instructions through Sky ECC from Darko Šarić, a convicted Montenegrin drug lord currently on trial in Serbia for money laundering and other serious crimes. Šarić’s lawyer denied any connection between his client and the alleged shipments.
The revelations are particularly sensitive for President Noboa, who has positioned himself as a tough opponent of drug trafficking. During a presidential debate, opposition candidate Luisa González challenged him over the allegations, to which Noboa responded that the company had cooperated with investigations and that officials had been cleared of wrongdoing.
Legal documents show the president’s father, Álvaro Noboa, transferred ownership of a key holding company to Daniel Noboa and another son in 2015. Before assuming office, Daniel Noboa served as shipping director for the family corporation.
Experts note that Ecuador’s status as the world’s largest banana exporter makes its shipping infrastructure vulnerable to exploitation by drug traffickers, with weak port controls and opaque contracting practices creating opportunities for criminal infiltration.