American special operations forces have joined Ecuadorian troops in Operation Lanza Marina, targeting a coastal compound linked to Los Choneros. It is the first confirmed deployment of U.S. boots on South American soil in a joint anti-cartel raid — an expansion of the Trump administration's increasingly militarized approach to drug trafficking.
American commandos have joined Ecuadorian troops in a joint military operation targeting a coastal compound linked to Los Choneros, a powerful criminal organization that the United States has designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization, according to CBS News and two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the mission publicly. The operation, dubbed Lanza Marina, represents the first confirmed deployment of U.S. special operations forces alongside South American troops in a land raid against a drug cartel — a meaningful threshold in the Trump administration's expanding use of military tools against narcotics networks.
The operation focused on a compound along Ecuador's coast that U.S. and Ecuadorian intelligence believed served as a staging ground for high-speed boats used by Los Choneros, according to the two officials cited by CBS News. The American forces operated in advisory and accompanying roles — providing intelligence and logistics support, helping plan the operation, and moving with Ecuadorian counterparts as they swept the site, the officials said. The Americans were not reported to have conducted the raid themselves.
U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) confirmed that joint operations with Ecuador had begun. Marine General Francis L. Donovan, commander of U.S. Southern Command, was quoted in a SOUTHCOM press release: "We commend the men and women of the Ecuadorian armed forces for their unwavering commitment to this fight, demonstrating courage and resolve through continued actions against narco-terrorists in their country."
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt praised the operation at a Wednesday briefing, saying: "Together, we are taking decisive action to confront narco-terrorists who have long inflicted terror, violence and corruption on citizens throughout the hemisphere," according to Al Jazeera's reporting from the briefing.
Los Choneros is an Ecuadorian criminal organization formed in the 1990s that evolved from a regional gang into an international trafficking network. According to the National Counterterrorism Center, the group adopted a decentralized, franchise-like structure — allowing factions to operate under its name and expand even as authorities targeted its leadership. The organization has forged ties with Mexico's Sinaloa cartel and criminal networks from Albania, enabling it to function as a node in global drug trafficking routes, CBS News reported citing the NCTC.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio in 2025 designated Los Choneros as both a Foreign Terrorist Organization — a State Department designation carrying criminal law and immigration enforcement weight — and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity through the Treasury Department, which targets the organization's financial infrastructure. Both designations provided the legal architecture that the Trump administration has used to frame anti-cartel military action as counterterrorism rather than law enforcement.
The legal authority enabling U.S. special operations forces to support Ecuadorian troops is 10 U.S.C. § 127e — commonly called "127 Echo" — which authorizes the U.S. military to provide support to foreign forces combating terrorism, CBS News explained. The authority requires oversight from the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, and the Defense Secretary has historically been required to approve individual missions and sign congressional notification letters.
The scope of who can authorize such missions expanded in 2025. CBS News exclusively reported that year that President Trump rolled back constraints that previously limited which American commanders could approve airstrikes and special operations raids outside conventional battlefields. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed that reporting was accurate.
The Ecuador ground operation does not exist in isolation. The Trump administration has been conducting an aerial and maritime interdiction campaign — internally called Operation Southern Spear — in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean since September 2025. According to Al Jazeera, at least 44 aerial strikes have been carried out against alleged drug-smuggling vessels as of early April 2026, resulting in approximately 150 known deaths.
The identity of the victims has not been confirmed by U.S. officials, and no public charges have been filed against those killed. Families from Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago have claimed some of the deceased were fishermen or informal maritime workers, not drug traffickers. Two survivors recovered from an October 2025 submarine attack were repatriated to Ecuador and Colombia, where they were subsequently released — a development that complicated the administration's characterization of the targets.
The Trump administration has also launched military actions on Venezuelan soil — one in late December 2025, a second on January 3, 2026 — citing them as law enforcement actions against drug trafficking networks, Al Jazeera reported. Ecuador's joint operations with the United States began formally on March 3, 2026, when SOUTHCOM announced the campaign publicly.
The Lanza Marina operation came days after a high-profile visit to Ecuador by Kristi Noem, who traveled to Quito on March 25, 2026 in her role as special envoy of the U.S. Shield of the Americas Program, according to AFP. The visit signaled the diplomatic scaffolding being built around the military cooperation — Ecuador's government has publicly aligned itself with the U.S. counterterrorism framing of Los Choneros.
Critics of the approach have raised two distinct objections. The first is legal: drug trafficking is defined as a crime under international law, not an act of war, meaning that lethal military operations against suspected traffickers could constitute extrajudicial killings absent due process. The second is strategic: the high civilian death toll risk in maritime interdiction campaigns — and the absence of confirmed identities among those killed — poses reputational costs in Latin America that military planners must weigh against operational gains.
The New York Times, citing a U.S. official who spoke anonymously, noted that the outcome of the first raid on March 3 was initially unclear — officials could not immediately confirm whether the mission's objective had been achieved or the raid was successful. CBS News noted that the Defense Department has historically used security cooperation agreements and train-and-equip programs to legitimize these joint operations, but the line between advising and participating in combat is thin and contested.
Lanza Marina represents a meaningful expansion of U.S. military engagement in South America. The Trump administration has now conducted or supported military operations in Venezuela, carried out dozens of maritime strikes in international waters, and confirmed the deployment of U.S. commandos inside Ecuador on a land raid targeting a designated terrorist organization. The combination of legal designations, loosened command authority, and direct military advising creates a model that could be applied to other countries and other cartel targets across the hemisphere — with or without fresh congressional authorization.