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Ecuador is increasingly at the meeting point of two worldwide trades: bananas and cocaine.
厄瓜多尔正日益成为两种全球贸易商品（香蕉和可卡因）的交汇点。
The South American country is the world's largest exporter of bananas with about 6.5 million metric tons a year.
这个南美国家是世界上最大的香蕉出口国，每年出口约650万吨香蕉。
Its neighbors, Peru and Colombia, are the world's largest cocaine producers.
它的邻国秘鲁和哥伦比亚是世界上最大的可卡因生产国。
Drug traffickers find containers filled with bananas the perfect vehicle to smuggle their product.
毒贩发现装满香蕉的集装箱是走私毒品的完美工具。
Drug trafficking has since brought extreme violence across this once-peaceful nation.
自那以后，毒品走私给这个曾经和平的国家带来了极端暴力。
Shootings, murders, kidnappings and extortions have become part of daily life.
枪击、谋杀、绑架和勒索已经成为日常生活的一部分。
That is especially true in the Pacific port city and banana-shipping center of Guayaquil.
在太平洋港口城市和香蕉运输中心瓜亚基尔，情况尤其如此。
The country was shocked when Fernando Villavicencio, a presidential candidate known for his tough position on organized crime, was shot to death on August 9.
8月9日，以对有组织犯罪采取强硬立场而闻名的总统候选人费尔南多·比利亚维森西奥被枪杀，该事件震惊了整个国家。
He had accused the Ecuadorian Los Choneros criminal group and its imprisoned leader of threatening him and his campaign team days before the killing.
在他被枪杀的前几天，他曾指控厄瓜多尔犯罪组织Los Choneros及其被监禁的领导人威胁他和他的竞选团队。
In addition to being close to cocaine production, drug smugglers from Mexico, Colombia and the Balkans in Europe have also set up operations in Ecuador.
除了靠近可卡因生产外，来自墨西哥、哥伦比亚和欧洲巴尔干半岛的毒品走私者也在厄瓜多尔开展活动。
That is because the country uses the U.S. dollar; its laws and institutions are weak; and criminal groups like Los Choneros are ready to work.
这是因为这个国家使用美元；它的法律和制度薄弱；诸如Los Choneros之类的犯罪集团做好了准备。
A record 2,304 metric tons of cocaine was produced in 2021 around the world, mostly in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.
2021年，全球可卡因产量达到创纪录的2304吨，主要产自哥伦比亚、秘鲁和玻利维亚。
That year, nearly a third of the cocaine seized by officials in Western and Central Europe came from Ecuador, two times the amount reported in 2018, found a United Nations report.
联合国的一份报告显示，那一年，西欧和中欧官员查获的可卡因中有近三分之一来自厄瓜多尔，是2018年报告数量的两倍。
Large drug seizures have become more common within the past month.
在过去的一个月里，大规模的毒品缉获变得更加常见。
European officials have made record-setting seizures after inspecting containers carrying bananas from Ecuador.
欧洲官员在检查了从厄瓜多尔运来的香蕉集装箱后，毒品缉获量创纪录。
Officials on August 25 announced Spain's biggest cocaine seizure yet: 9.5 metric tons hidden among boxes of bananas from Ecuador in a refrigerated container.
西班牙官员8月25日宣布，西班牙查获了迄今为止数量最多的可卡因：9.5公吨可卡因藏在来自厄瓜多尔的冷藏集装箱中的香蕉盒中。
Dutch officials also made their country's largest-ever cocaine seizure last month — nearly 8 metric tons — in a container of Ecuadorian bananas.
上个月，荷兰官员还在一个装有厄瓜多尔香蕉的集装箱中查获了该国有史以来数量最多的可卡因——近8吨。
Officials in Greece and Italy also announced seizures of cocaine hidden in Ecuadorian bananas this year.
希腊和意大利官员也宣布今年缴获了藏在厄瓜多尔香蕉中的可卡因。
Knowingly or not, banana growers, exporters, shipping companies, port operators, private security companies, customs agents, agriculture officials, police, and buyers can be used by drug traffickers.
无论有意无意，香蕉种植者、出口商、航运公司、港口运营商、私人保安公司、海关代理、农业官员、警察和买家都可能被毒贩利用。
Some traffickers have created false companies to look like real banana exporters.
一些毒贩创建了假公司，看起来像真正的香蕉出口商。
Others have taken control of legal businesses, including plantations.
其他公司则控制了包括种植园在内的合法企业。
They have found companies willing to cooperate in trafficking.
他们找到了愿意合作贩卖毒品的公司。
They have also paid off, threatened or kidnapped truck drivers and other workers to help get cocaine into shipments.
他们还收买、威胁或绑架卡车司机和其他工人，让他们帮助将可卡因运上船。
Violent deaths in Ecuador have doubled from 2021 to 2022, when 4,600 died, the most ever recorded in a year.
从2021年到2022年，厄瓜多尔因暴力死亡的人数翻了一番，死亡人数为4600人，是有记录以来死亡人数最多的一年。
The country is likely to break the yearly record again, with 3,568 violent deaths recorded in the first half of 2023.
该国很可能再次打破年度纪录，2023年上半年记录的因暴力死亡的人数为3568人。
In Guayaquil, people live in fear.
在瓜亚基尔，人们生活在恐惧中。
No more than 30 percent of containers are currently inspected at Ecuadorian ports.
目前在厄瓜多尔港口接受检查的集装箱不超过30%。
President Guillermo Lasso's government says it wants to use scanners on entire containers.
总统吉列尔莫·拉索的政府表示，其希望使用扫描仪对所有集装箱进行检查。
Twelve of those machines were supposed to be operating already but that has not happened yet, said National Police General Pablo Ramirez.
国家警察局长巴勃罗·拉米雷斯说，其中12台机器应该已经开始运转了，但这还没有发生。
He is Ecuador's national director of anti-drug investigations.
他是厄瓜多尔国家禁毒调查主任。
Jose Hidalgo is director of the Association of Banana Exporters of Ecuador.
何塞·伊达尔戈是厄瓜多尔香蕉出口商协会的负责人。
He said the industry is more vulnerable to trafficking than other export products because of the number of containers that it uses.
他说，与其他出口产品相比，该行业更容易受到非法交易的影响，因为它使用的集装箱数量较多。
He explained that exporters spend about $100 million yearly on security measures.
他解释说，出口商每年在安全措施上的支出约为1亿美元。
That includes surveillance cameras at plantations, GPS monitoring of trucks, and the identification of land routes that require police patrols to keep criminals away.
其中包括种植园的监控摄像头，卡车的GPS监控，以及需要警察巡逻以阻止犯罪分子的陆地路线图。
Still, some exporters have been accused of being involved in trafficking cocaine.
尽管如此，一些出口商仍被指控参与走私可卡因。
The organization behind the cocaine seizure in Spain operated through a banana exporting company in Machala, a city south of Guayaquil.
西班牙查获的可卡因背后的组织是通过瓜亚基尔以南城市马查拉的一家香蕉出口公司运作的。
After this story was published in The Associated Press, agriculture and customs officials in Ecuador announced in a statement that they had removed a government-run banana export database.
在美联社发表这篇报道之后，厄瓜多尔的农业和海关官员在一份声明中宣布，他们已经删除了一个由政府运营的香蕉出口数据库。
It removed information on export companies considered to be false or incomplete.
它删除了被认为是虚假或不完整的出口公司的信息。
It also canceled permits of plantations covering 16,000 hectares found to be nonexistent.
它还取消了占地1.6万公顷的种植园的许可证，这些种植园被发现根本不存在。
I'm Dan Novak.
丹·诺瓦克为您播报。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
