A secret CIA programme, not the Pentagon’s publicly acknowledged strikes, was behind a string of drone attacks on three Ecuadorian fishing vessels near the Galápagos Islands earlier this year, citing a person familiar with the matter, as reported by the Washington Post on August 13.
The crew of the Fiorella — eight men in all — disappeared along with their boat on January 20. Seven months later, searchers have not found them, and the United Nations now presumes them dead.
According to the Post’s source, officials carried out the strikes under a formal “covert action” authorization—a legal designation that requires presidential sign-off and specifically allows Washington to deny involvement. No government has claimed responsibility for the attacks. The CIA and the U.S. military declined to comment, and the Pentagon has stated that its Southern Command was not involved.
A Consistent Pattern
A similar sequence emerged across all three incidents, as reported by the Post and, separately, the New York Times, on August 12.
Surveillance came first. The Washington Post tracked a business jet flying under the call sign FENIX 701 as it operated out of Ilopango Airport in El Salvador, a site that has long served as a base for American covert operations. The investigation found that operators had apparently fabricated the aircraft’s U.S. registration and concealed its ownership behind a shell company. According to The New York Times, a company registered to a UPS Store mailbox in Richmond, Virginia, operated a maritime patrol aircraft involved in the mission. Recordings of air-traffic communications also captured pilots speaking English with American accents.
Then came the strikes themselves: survivors reported small quadcopter drones that either dropped munitions or flew directly into the hulls of their boats, with a larger drone circling overhead. Witnesses said the weaponry looked rudimentary compared with what the Pentagon has used in its own publicized attacks.
Finally, boarding parties moved in. A blue-hulled patrol boat picked up survivors, who were handcuffed and hooded by armed men in uniforms bearing American flag patches but no other identifying insignia. The men interrogated the fishermen about drug trafficking before handing them over to Salvadoran forces the next morning; Ecuador later repatriated the crews without public explanation. In total, 36 men survived the three incidents, and several have alleged they were tortured.
The boats did not appear in commercial ship-tracking systems, so their routes were reconstructed using Vessel Monitoring System data maintained by fisheries regulators.
Why Go Covert When the Pentagon Already Strikes Openly?
The operation comes amid a significant expansion of CIA authority under President Donald Trump, who has signed off on covert lethal action against transnational criminal organizations. He publicly confirmed CIA operations inside Venezuela on October 15, 2025, and the agency has since expanded its footprint across Latin America — including intelligence work that contributed to the January 3 capture of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces.
What puzzles former officials is that the Pentagon is already running an acknowledged lethal campaign in the region. Operation Southern Spear has killed at least 221 people since September 2025, per figures compiled by Drop Site News. Given that overt operation, sources questioned the logic of running a parallel secret one, as reported by the Post. Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer now with the International Crisis Group, called the arrangement especially puzzling in light of the public strikes already underway.
One likely explanation is oversight: the CIA briefs covert operations only to the congressional intelligence committees behind closed doors, while lawmakers, the media, and the public subject military operations to far broader scrutiny. No evidence emerged that any of the three boats were carrying drugs, per the Post’s reporting, though trafficking activity has increased in waters near the Galápagos and local fishermen sometimes take paid work ferrying fuel to smuggling operations.
Echoes of a Earlier CIA Programme
The episode recalls the CIA’s Air Bridge Denial Programme, which operated in Peru from 1995 to 2001. CIA spotters helped Peruvian jets intercept aircraft suspected of smuggling coca paste, and Peruvian forces ultimately shot down 15 civilian planes. That programme collapsed after Peruvian forces shot down a floatplane carrying an American missionary family on April 20, 2001, killing Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter, Charity. A declassified CIA inspector general’s report later found that pilots had repeatedly opened fire without properly identifying targets or issuing warnings, and that the agency had withheld this from the National Security Council, the Justice Department, and Congress; sixteen officers received administrative discipline.
Covert maritime operations by the CIA have an even longer history: the agency mined Nicaraguan harbors in 1983 and 1984, an act the International Court of Justice ruled on June 27, 1986, violated international law — a ruling Washington never complied with.
Calls for Accountability
Amnesty International has called for a formal investigation into the Fiorella disappearance. Human Rights Watch has raised concerns about the broader U.S.–Ecuador security campaign. Scrutiny inside Ecuador has come at a cost. Unknown assailants shot and killed prosecutor Gloria Alexandra Bravo Cedeño in Manta on June 14. She was investigating the strikes at the time. Authorities have not arrested anyone in connection with her killing.
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s government has yet to confirm any American role in the strikes. In the coastal town of Jaramijó, the families of the Fiorella*s crew are still waiting for an answer.
