EASTERN PACIFIC — The longline-fishing vessel Fiorella, carrying ten crew members, disappeared in the eastern Pacific on January 20, 2025. The disappearance occurred after the vessel was followed by an aircraft and a patrol vessel, prompting an investigation into the incident.

On January 13, 2025, Juan Carlos Valencia loaded ice into the hold of the Fiorella before setting out with a crew of nine from Jaramijó, Ecuador. The voyage was expected to last three weeks, with the crew intending to fish for shark, marlin, and tuna. Most of the crew members had sailed together for years.

During the voyage, crew member Cristhian Flores noted an object in the sky that sounded softer than an airplane, which captain Juan Carlos Valencia identified as a drone. Subsequently, two aircraft began following the Fiorella, descending, climbing, and circling the vessel. On January 19, 2025, a large patrol vessel appeared on the horizon near the Fiorella. Flores and fellow crew member Dimas Ignacio Álvarez reported seeing what they believed to be a U.S. flag on the patrol vessel. During this period, Juan Carlos Valencia called his father Johnny multiple times daily via satellite phone to report being followed. On the night of January 19, the Fiorella cut its engines.

On the morning of January 20, 2025, four crew members deployed two skiffs to spread baited hooks. Juan Carlos Valencia made a call to his father that day, stating, "So far, we're fine." Around 13:00 on January 20, Flores and Álvarez, who were in one of the skiffs approximately fifteen nautical miles east of the Fiorella, observed a column of smoke to the west. They described the smoke as very tall, very black, and very large. Following the smoke's appearance, calls to Valencia via radio were unsuccessful. Flores and Álvarez proceeded to the designated rendezvous point but found no sign of the Fiorella or the other skiff.

On January 21, Flores and Álvarez recorded a video in which they were seen discarding their catch of small blue sharks. "The boat just disappeared. We're totally lost here," Cristhian Flores stated in the recording. The boat Dios Es Mi Guía located Flores and Álvarez on January 22. On the same day, Fiorella owners Eduardo Moreira and Nancy Rivera reported the boat missing and filed a complaint at the public prosecutor's office on January 23, initiating a preliminary investigation.

Navy officials in Manta stated that a search had been activated. The Fiorella owners also chartered a boat and conducted their own search, discovering parts of the Fiorella's longline gear about ninety nautical miles northwest of its last recorded position. They informed the Navy and the prosecutor's office of this discovery. No one asked to inspect the recovered gear, according to Juan Alvia Cevallos, a lawyer representing the Fiorella owners and the families of the missing men. A report later indicated that the Navy waited nine days from the initial alert to assign another vessel to search for the Fiorella, and the requested search route was along the vessel's existing path to the Galápagos, not near the Fiorella's last known coordinates. After approximately one month, the Navy transitioned the search from active to passive, a standard procedure when the likelihood of finding survivors is considered low.

Why It Matters

This incident occurs during Operation Southern Spear, a U.S. military campaign against suspected drug smugglers in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean, which has been active since September 2025. This operation has led to at least sixty-six strikes on vessels and resulted in two hundred fifteen fatalities. Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has welcomed U.S. military involvement in anti-narcotics efforts in the region. Since his election in 2023, Noboa declared war on organized crime, deploying the military to streets and jails and permitting warrantless home searches. He also ratified agreements with the Biden Administration that allowed U.S. troops to establish a presence in Ecuador.

Ecuador's homicide rate has more than quintupled since 2020, making it the highest in South America. In the past two years, at least seven boat captains in the Manta area have been assassinated, with Ecuadorian police suspecting these acts were reprisals for resisting traffickers or related to inter-gang disputes. The families of the missing Fiorella crew members have maintained that the men have no connection to the drug trade. Juan Alvia Cevallos reported that a Navy official suggested to the families that the men "knew what they got themselves into and had to face the consequences."