Ecuador’s Security Minister Miguel Carvajal complains that the 35,000 hectares of coca cultivation on the Colombian side of the border have a huge impact on his country, reports EFE.
“Ecuador is a country in between the world’s two largest producers of coca: Peru and Colombia,” Carvajal said.
The minister said that this forms the basis of massive illegal trade where people are paid two to three times what they would earn on a normal agricultural wage.
The presence of guerrillas such as the FARC and other armed groups connected with the drug trade is also a problem that Ecuador had to deal with according to Carvajal.
The Ecudaorean official said that there was “no significant illegal cultivation” in Ecuador.
Last year Colombia was the largest producer of coca, with 68,000 hectares of cultivation, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.