As President Donald Trump prepared to welcome conservative Latin American leaders to a summit in Florida in early March, U.S. officials released a video of a massive explosion — capturing the destruction of what they said was a drug trafficker’s training camp in rural Ecuador.

The video was meant to show that the U.S. military, which for months has bombed boats it says are carrying drugs from South America, was “now bombing Narco Terrorists on land,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on social media.

But a New York Times investigation raises questions about the operation that both the United States and Ecuador spotlighted as part of a new military alliance targeting drug traffickers.

The military strike appears to have destroyed a cattle and dairy farm, not a drug trafficking compound, according to interviews with the farm’s owner, four of its workers, human rights lawyers and residents and leaders in San Martín, the remote farming village in northern Ecuador where the strike took place.

And though the Pentagon said at the time that it had “executed targeted action” against the site at Ecuador’s request, U.S. troops had no direct involvement in the strike shown in the video, according to four people with knowledge of the operation, three of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

In San Martín, which the Times visited over two days this month, residents told a different story about the bombardment and the actions by Ecuador’s military in the days leading up to the strike.

Workers on the farm told the Times that Ecuadorian soldiers arrived by helicopter March 3, doused several shelters and sheds with gasoline and ignited them after interrogating workers and beating four of them with the butts of their guns. Three of the workers, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation by the government, said the soldiers later choked and subjected them to electrical shocks before letting them go.

Village residents said Ecuadorian helicopters returned to the farm three days later, on March 6, and appeared to drop explosives on the farm’s smoldering remains. It was at that point, they said, that Ecuadorian soldiers recorded the footage that U.S. and Ecuadorian officials said captured the bombing of a traffickers’ compound.

The Ecuadorian military said in a news release that the property was used by an armed group to hide weapons and as a place for drug traffickers to sleep and train. The farm’s owner and local residents denied the claims.

Residents said the strike was part of a broader, multiday operation by Ecuadorian soldiers, who burned two nearby abandoned homes earlier in the week, then bombed one of them by plane.

The Times visited San Martín a few days later in March and sought to corroborate residents’ accounts with photos and videos of the military operation and its aftermath.

Ecuador does not produce cocaine but is a top exporter of cocaine smuggled from Colombia and Peru to the rest of the world. Ecuadorian drug gangs partnered with foreign cartels have recently turned the once-peaceful country into one of Latin America’s most violent.

Colombian armed groups are also known to operate along Ecuador’s border, where illegal mining and the cocaine trade have flourished. But residents said the dairy farm and other homes the military blew up were not linked to illicit activity.

The Ecuadorian government said in the news release that it had relied on U.S. “intelligence and support” to target the farm, which it said was a camp used to train “about 50 drug traffickers.”

Ecuadorian officials also said it was a “resting place” used by the leader of Comandos de la Frontera, a Colombian armed group that moves cocaine along the Ecuador-Colombia border, according to the authorities.

Ecuadorian officials said soldiers had recovered guns and other “evidence of illicit activity” on the property. The Ecuadorian military did not offer evidence for its claims even though it tends to publicize photos of drugs, weapons and contraband it seizes during operations.

The Ecuadorian military referred questions to President Daniel Noboa, who did not respond to a detailed list of questions.

Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon’s press secretary, said the strike March 6 was conducted “jointly” with Ecuador, adding, “Due to operations security, we will not discuss specific tactics or targeting details.”

She said the Pentagon was committed to working with Latin American partners because “cartel networks threaten the stability of our hemisphere.”

Two U.S. officials who requested anonymity to speak about the operation said U.S. Special Forces had provided guidance to the Ecuadorians in the raid on the two abandoned homes upriver, which the two militaries believed were tied to a trafficking group. One of the officials added that the U.S. military deployed a helicopter to assist Ecuador’s strike on the farm, but that the U.S. military had no direct involvement in the bombing.

Mario Pazmiño, a retired colonel and former director of intelligence for Ecuador’s army, said it was “protocol” to destroy any place used by Colombian traffickers in Ecuadorian territory.

Pazmiño said he had been told by high-ranking Ecuadorian military and security officials that the military had concluded the property had been used by the Comandos leader and members of his group as a place to sleep.

Pazmiño independently provided information that aligns with accounts from residents. Ecuadorian forces questioned four people on the property, he said, and used helicopters to launch rockets on the farm.

He, too, said that while the United States and Ecuador had been cooperating elsewhere in Ecuador, the U.S. military had not been involved in the bombing of the farm.

“What the army did was attack that house, or farm, and destroy it in its totality,” said Pazmiño, referring to Ecuadorian forces.

A representative for the Comandos told the Times in a phone interview that the group had not used the property as a camp or hideout.

The dairy farm’s owner, Miguel, said he bought the 350-acre farm about six years ago for $9,000, growing it to more than 50 cows used for milk and meat.

Miguel, 32, a carpenter and father of two, asked to be identified by only his first name for fear of retaliation by the government. He showed the Times the land’s property title that listed him as its owner, as well as photos of the farm before it was demolished.

As Miguel stood in the rubble, he denied that his farm was used as a training camp, and said he was baffled by the military’s decision to bomb the property.

He fought back tears as he explained what was there before: two wooden shelters, an outpost to make cheese, sheds for his equipment. The horse paddock was spared, but the chicken coop was gone.

The Alliance for Human Rights, a coalition of groups in Ecuador, filed a 13-page complaint with the Ecuadorian authorities and the United Nations, claiming that the military’s actions were attacks on a civilian population.

“There isn’t a single public official who has come to verify what happened,” said María Espinosa, a human rights lawyer.

Some San Martín residents wondered whether the government had used the strike on the farm to drum up support for its crackdown on the country’s violent drug gangs.

This month, an area of the Pacific coast has been placed under a nighttime curfew as Ecuador’s security forces, with intelligence support from U.S. forces, combat gangs.

“All we want is for the truth to come out,” said Vicente Garrido, the vice president of the San Martín village board. “They say it was some training camp, but it’s becoming clear that they were just homes.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Luis Ferré-Sadurní, José María León Cabrera, Annie Correal and Eric Schmitt/Federico Rios
c. 2026 The New York Times Company