U.S. Aircraft to Aid Ecuador Drug Fight : Latin America: Cocaine traffickers reportedly are moving across the border from Colombia.

In a significant expansion of its anti-drug operations abroad, the State Department has dispatched helicopters and a reconnaissance plane to Ecuador to help the National Police halt operations believed responsible for a burgeoning share of world cocaine trafficking, Bush Administration officials said Thursday.

The mission, launched quietly last month, responds to new concern that cocaine traffickers are adopting the isolated highways and rivers of Ecuador as principal routes for shipment of cocaine bound for the United States and Europe.

Its urgency became clear after the Colombian government crackdown on cocaine operations in late August immediately generated a marked increase in suspicious movement across the border into Ecuador, officials said.

“That really woke us up,” one source said.

The operation, which involves U.S. civilian pilots and military aircraft, marks the first time that the United States has extended airborne support for such anti-cocaine operations beyond the major drug-producing countries of Peru, Bolivia and Colombia.

The Ecuadorian Embassy in Washington declined to comment on the effort. “This is a very touchy issue with us,” said spokesman Hilda Lanas.

The U.S. plans for a “limited” new anti-drug mission in Ecuador are described in an Aug. 24 State Department memorandum to prospective contractors, which was obtained by The Times. In confirming the authenticity of that document Wednesday, officials made clear that the parameters of the mission had been broadened because of the Colombian crackdown.

The current operation includes two Bell 212 helicopters and one T-65 Thrush reconnaissance plane, all of them based in northern Ecuador. Initially, the job was to have been carried out only by helicopters based in other countries.

In addition, officials said, the mission is now designed to target cocaine laboratories and trafficking operations in Ecuador for interdiction operations by national police. That marks a departure from the original plan, which emphasized aerial surveillance of suspected coca-growing regions.

“This reflects our belief that there’s a heck of lot more cocaine going through Ecuador . . . than we had suspected previously,” said Albert Matano, a State Department official who directs the narcotics bureau’s air wing operations.

While U.S. anti-drug officials long have spoken of dangers posed by coca cultivation in Ecuador, new evidence suggests that the trafficking of cocaine and of chemicals used in laboratories to produce the drug pose a more significant threat, officials said.

Indeed, Matano reported that the U.S.-backed helicopter missions in northern Ecuador have already found a “surprisingly heavy volume” of tanker traffic carrying ether, acetone and other precursor chemicals from the Ecuadorian port of Guayaquil.

When the mission moves next to the region along the border between Ecuador and Peru, officials expect to find processing laboratories from which cocaine is transported back to Guayaquil and other ports and dispatched on tankers to the United States and Europe, officials said.

“Ecuador is a two-way street,” said Rafael Perl, a drug policy expert with the Congressional Research Service. “Chemicals in; cocaine out.”

By contrast, surveillance of the few suspected coca-growing regions in northwestern Ecuador has shown that farmers have abandoned their fields in the wake of determined eradication efforts by the Ecuadorean national police and army.

The current operation is comprised of a team of U.S. pilots who carry Ecuadorian national police forces in U.S. military aircraft under the terms of a State Department contract. Projected missions include raids on cocaine processing laboratories and the interdiction of suspicious shipments on roads and rivers.

Ecuador is believed to serve as a transit point for an estimated 30 to 50 metric tons of processed cocaine each year--at least 10% of the world total, according to a recent State Department report.

In light of new evidence showing an increase in trafficking activity, anti-drug officials said Thursday that they would be inclined to revise upward their estimates of Ecuador’s role.

However, Ecuador remains a relatively insignificant source of the raw coca leaves that are transformed into cocaine.

Its estimated annual production of about 400 metric tons was less than 1% of the world’s coca crop last year, according to the State Department report.

Although U.S. authorities frequently have seized Ecuadorian tankers carrying cocaine at sea or in U.S. ports, they have had a difficult time tracking the shipments back through Ecuador. The State Department officials said that they hope the new anti-drug operation could help shed new light on that part of the trafficking network.