Ecuadorian security forces have confiscated roughly three tons of cocaine during a raid on a rural property outside Guayaquil that investigators say served as a front for an Albanian trafficking network. The haul, discovered on 4 July, is one of the country’s largest single seizures this year and underscores Ecuador’s role as a key transit point for narcotics bound for overseas markets. Police link the stash to Dritan Gjika, an Albanian national whom Interpol arrested in the United Arab Emirates in May after more than a decade operating from Ecuador. According to the interior ministry, Gjika’s organisation moved multi-ton shipments of cocaine from Colombia to Europe and laundered millions of dollars through front companies in Spain and the Gulf. The latest bust follows Gjika’s detention and forms part of a broader crackdown on trans-national drug networks active in the Andean nation. Officials said the recovered narcotics were readied for export, most likely to European ports, and that further arrests are expected as the investigation expands. Ecuadorian authorities have stepped up joint operations with international agencies in response to a surge in drug-related violence and record seizures along the country’s Pacific coast.