Juan Pablo Larrea Cruz has Ecuadorian Brother Who is Allegedly Linked to Sinaloa Drug Cartel

The media in Ecuador and even in Mexico has picked up the news of the arrest of the foreign nationals for landing and attempting to move a cargo of cocaine here.  According to one report in Noticias Primicias, forty-three-year-old Ecuadorian, Juan Pablo Larrea Cruz who is locked up at the Hattieville prison, is the brother of Eduardo Xavier Larrea Cruz.  Eduardo was arrested in an anti-narcotics operation in Ecuador in June this year. Eduardo was also the former deputy director of the D.G.A.C., the civil aviation authority of Ecuador, between 2007 and 2009. The reports go on to allege that he has ties to the Sinaloa drug cartel. Back in June, the Ecuadorian Police announced it dismantled and organization dedicated to international drug trafficking in its airways. They operated by controlled and uncontrolled flights to Central America and Mexico, said Chief of Antinarcotics, Colonel Walter Villarroel. The organization reportedly had direct contact with the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel. Eduardo Larrea is being prosecuted for the crime of organized crime. At the bond hearing earlier this month, the prosecutor said Larrea offered a Cessna 421 plane with a capacity of eight hundred kilograms to transport two hundred kilos of drugs, at a cost of almost half a million US dollars. .  The Larrea brothers reportedly also owned the Sky Jet Elite Company, opened in 2011 in Miami, Florida, a few months after Eduardo Larrea left the civil aviation. Back in 2014, the DEA seized three planes from the company, on suspicion that they were used to transport drugs. The Larrea brothers also operated a company in Ecuador, which remained active until September 2019.