The high quantities of drug seizures in Ecuador have led to a new and unique construction material, cocaine. This comes after the amount of drugs seized in 2021 doubled in the country when compared to the previous year to more than 210 tonnes, mostly cocaine, said Ecuador’s police. The country is also said to be a transit point for gangs to ship cocaine to the United States and Europe. However, since incumbent President Guillermo Lasso came into power two years ago, Ecuador has ramped up its efforts to stop the flow of illicit drugs in and out of the country.
The country uses a so-called encapsulation method with the support of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) “out of desperation to make good on destroying the drugs”, said the undersecretary for Drug Control at Ecuador’s Interior Ministry, to Reuters. The process includes pulverising seized bricks of cocaine in machines with some other materials at a waste disposal plant and then mixing the fine powder obtained with cement, sand and water to create concrete.
The waste treatment plant which is located at an undisclosed location outside the Ecuadorian capital city of Quito reportedly receives hundreds of blocks of cocaine hydrochloride and coca paste which is the precursor to cocaine, from across the country every week. Subsequently, as per technicians, it is broken down and mixed with glass, expired medicines and even oil waste, reported Reuters.
After this, the powder is mixed with other materials to produce a cement slurry to use in construction. According to the UN drug agency, as this slurry sets it combines with the rest of the materials mixed and forms a stable, hard and impenetrable matrix which prevents cocaine from seeping into the ground or being recovered.
“This procedure is cheaper, takes less time and doesn’t affect the environment”, said Ecuador’s Director of Anti-Drug Investigation, Pablo Ramirez, while noting that encapsulation of a tonne of cocaine takes less than three hours as opposed to incinerating the same amount of the illicit drug which can take at least 12 hours.
However, this cocaine-laced concrete has not been used for construction projects just yet. So far, the Ecuadorian authorities have been using this process to fill 15-metre-deep holes in the undisclosed location of the plant with layers of concrete which would later form a warehouse floor and they have no plans of using the encapsulated cocaine for other projects as of now.
Ecuador’s drug problem
As mentioned earlier, since the country acts as a transit point for drugs sent to the US and Europe authorities have seized record amounts of the illicit substance over the years. In 2022, while the number of seizures dropped slightly, the quantity of drugs found remained high which led to 27 police warehouses, where the illicit substances are stored before being destroyed, exceeding their maximum capacity.
Mera also told Reuters the record amounts of drugs also surpassed the number of ovens used to incinerate the drugs which led to Ecuador using some of its excess cocaine to turn into construction material. Notably, the process of encapsulation has helped authorities to free some space at the police drug collection centres.
According to plant technicians, so far, nearly 350 tonnes of cocaine and its precursor coca paste seized between last year and the year before has been turned into construction material. While some 83 tonnes of cocaine is still waiting to be encapsulated, said Ramirez.
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