Ecuador, Santa Elena Department
—
Andres Fernando Tufinho Chira’s sister last heard from him about a year ago, when he told her he was going fishing for work, she said. Last week, she was shocked to learn that her brother was on a drug ship that was allegedly attacked by the US military.
Tufinho Chira, 41, was one of two survivors of last week’s attack in the Caribbean, which President Donald Trump said was carried out on a “drug-laden submarine” sailing toward the United States. Two others were killed.
Tufinho Chira and another survivor were later returned to their country of origin by the United States, which President Trump described as “terrorists.”
“No, no… he’s not. He’s not a criminal,” Tufinho Chira’s sister, who asked not to be named out of fear for her safety, told CNN from a small coastal town two hours from the Ecuadorian port city of Guayaquil.
She claimed to have no knowledge of her brother’s alleged involvement in drug trafficking, instead portraying him as a desperate father trying to support his six children. Tufinho Chira’s wife took their children with him, but he still sent them money, his sister said.
“He’s very happy and fun,” she said of her brother. “He is everything I loved most.”
She has yet to hear from her brother since he was released by Ecuadorian authorities upon his return this week.
Ecuador’s attorney general’s office said Monday that authorities have no information that Tufinho Chira committed any crimes on Ecuadorian territory. However, he has a criminal history in the United States, and court documents show he was arrested and convicted of drug smuggling off the coast of Mexico in 2020 and subsequently deported.
Tufinho Chira’s sister said her two other brothers were also arrested on drug smuggling charges a few months ago. Both are in custody, one in the United States and the other in Ecuador.
The family’s experience illustrates how Ecuador has become an important route for the cocaine trade. According to Ecuador’s president, about 70% of the world’s cocaine supply transits the coast from Colombia and Peru.
Drug traffickers often transport drugs through the vast waters of the Pacific Ocean, unloading them in Mexico, and then smuggling them into the United States or Europe.
According to people who live there, it is difficult to escape the drug trafficking trade in the town of Tufinho Chira.
“Life is complicated. It’s hard,” one man told CNN about the financial hardships of fishermen, who sometimes earn as little as $100 a month.
Another fisherman who spoke to CNN in March from the Ecuadorian city of Manta on the Pacific coast said becoming a drug trafficker is appealing when you can earn tens of thousands of dollars upfront.
The profession has also been targeted by the Trump administration. The United States on Tuesday expanded its military operation to attack ships suspected of operating illegal drugs in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
Both passengers and crew were killed, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said.
This was the eighth known attack by the U.S. military on a suspected drug smuggling vessel since early September. All seven previous attacks targeted boats in the Caribbean just north of Venezuela.
To date, at least 34 people have been killed in US airstrikes, 32 of them in the Caribbean.
The Trump administration says the goal is to save American lives from drug overdoses. However, most overdose deaths in the United States are not caused by cocaine. They are derived from fentanyl, which is primarily produced in Mexico and smuggled across the border by land, often by U.S. citizens.
As the US offensive continues, it is not the cartel leaders who are caught in the crossfire, but the men who take risks on their behalf. They are fishermen and are often considered expendable by the gangs that employ them.
Tufinho Chira’s sister gave CNN a tour of the house where her brother lived before he left. His room is kept like a shrine, with candles lit in his honor and his clothes neatly folded on his bed.
She wants to talk to her brother soon. For now, she’s relieved to know he’s alive.
