Ecuadorean crews plying the waters of the Pacific have been targeted by a mysterious outfit equipped with drones. Some sailors appear to have lost their lives.
The US appears to have secretly issued letters of marque to mercenaries authorizing them to rob and kill fishermen
I’ll confess that I’m honestly pretty skeptical about the true letters-of-marque angle here. It seems… somehat unlikely that there’s any way looting Ecuadorian fishermen makes economic sense. Deploying drones, raiders, planes, etc. is an expensive undertaking, and the average Ecuadorian fisherman isn’t exactly flush with cash, high-value equipment or a hold full of spanish silver.
It seems, idk, a tad more credible that the explanation is something more like they’re simply denying the degree of cooperation between the Colombian and American forces, or that american affiliated forces are operating in the region at all.