In September 2020, alleged cocaine kingpin Dritan Gjika texted a contact that the phones they were using were no longer safe.
Despite this, he and key interlocutors kept using their Sky phones for another six months — a move that would contribute to their downfall after police hacked into the encrypted messaging platform the following year.
OCCRP has now obtained hundreds of pages of Gjika’s Sky chat logs, which were filed by Ecuadorian prosecutors as evidence in a criminal case against him and members of the powerful cocaine trafficking network he allegedly led.
The chats reveal granular details about the daily logistics of running a cocaine empire, from infiltrating Ecuador’s ports, to handling international transfers of drugs and cash.
Gjika, an Albanian national who is now one of Ecuador’s most wanted criminals, was arrested in Abu Dhabi in 2025 and is currently awaiting extradition to Ecuador.
At least 17 others have been convicted in Ecuador of belonging to or aiding the same criminal syndicate. Four others were convicted of laundering the proceeds of the racket, making transfers of more than $43 million between 2015 and 2023.
