A survivor of the U.S. military strike on a suspected drug-carrying vessel in the Caribbean last week has been released by authorities in Ecuador after prosecutors said they found “no indication or evidence” he had committed a crime.
Andrés Fernando Tufiño is one of two individuals who survived a U.S. attack on a semi-submersible vessel in the waters off the coast of Venezuela Thursday.
The vessel was “loaded with mostly fentanyl and other illegal narcotics,” President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform Saturday.
In the post, he wrote that it was his “great honor to destroy a very large drug-carrying submarine,” when announcing that two individuals had been killed in the attack and the two other “narcoterrorists” would be returned to their countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia, “for detention and prosecution.”
Tufiño, however, has since been released by Ecuadorean authorities.
. @POTUS “It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route. U.S. Intelligence confirmed this vessel was loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics.… pic.twitter.com/0j3sOLNygp
— DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) October 18, 2025
According to a government document obtained by The Associated Press, officials stated that there was “no evidence or indication that could lead prosecutors or judicial authorities to be certain” of any crimes by Tufiño.
Tufiño is reportedly in good health. The other survivor, 34-year-old Jeison Obando Pérez, was repatriated to Colombia and remains hospitalized.
The administration’s latest strike on suspected drug-carrying vessels in the Caribbean was the sixth such reported attack since Sept. 2.
On Friday, another U.S.-led strike in the region brought the total death toll to at least 32.
Most of the fentanyl that enters the U.S. comes through Mexico, with little evidence that it is produced in the Andes.
Critics say such use of military force, which Trump has justified by saying the U.S. is engaging in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, appears to violate both international and domestic law.
Last week, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request to review documents on President Trump’s lethal strikes against alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean.
“All available evidence suggests that President Trump’s lethal strikes in the Caribbean constitute murder, pure and simple,” said Jeffrey Stein, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project. “The public deserves to know how our government is justifying these attacks as lawful, and, given the stakes, immediate public scrutiny of its apparently radical theories is imperative.”
With News Wire Services
