11.5 Tons of Drugs Seized in Simultaneous Raids at Sea

Thanks to intelligence information from the Colombian National Navy, authorities from Ecuador, the United States, Mexico, and Panama managed to seize 11,516 kilograms of drugs in simultaneous maritime interdiction operations.

According to estimates by the authorities, the more than eleven tons of narcotics seized from transnational criminal organizations would be valued at about $358 million dollars.

Colombia

During security and maritime control operations, units of the Bahía Solano Coast Guard Station managed to seize 508 kilograms of cocaine, distributed in 17 sacks.

According to information from the Navy, the sacks with the drugs were found adrift, in what the authorities know as “seeding in the sea, in which, together with the drug traffickers, they deliver the coordinates of the location of the shipment to organizations of transnational crime, for its subsequent recovery and trafficking.

Panama

In Panamanian maritime territory, the first operations were carried out in the sectors of Chitré, Punta Mala, Punta Jaque, and San Carlos, where, thanks to intelligence information from the Colombian Navy, the National Aeronaval Service – SENAN of Panama, with the support of authorities of the Joint Interagency Task Force of the United States Southern Command (JIATFS), managed to intercept four speedboats in which 1,341 kilograms of cocaine and 1,090 kilograms of marijuana were mobilized.

Ecuador

Simultaneously, in the maritime area of ​​the Ecuadorian cities Salinas and Manta, units of the Ecuadorian Navy, together with JIAFTS soldiers, also thanks to Colombian intelligence information, managed to seize 3,684 kilograms of cocaine, when drug traffickers tried to take it out of the country on board of various vessels to Central America.

Mexico

Likewise, in the development of three maritime interdiction operations in the waters of Jalisco, Acapulco, and Zihuatanejo, in Mexico, four motor ships loaded with 4,893 kilograms of cocaine were intercepted, at the moment in which drug traffickers tried to enter the shipments into the country.

The authorities confirmed that 12 Mexicans, 4 Colombians, 4 Panamanians, and 3 Ecuadorians were captured during these operations.