The Mexican Navy announced Tuesday that it had seized 3.6 tons (about 8,000 pounds) of cocaine aboard a “narco submarine” off the Pacific coast which was spotted earlier this week about 153 miles off the coast of Acapulco resort.
Navy ships arrived to intercept the boat, which was carrying 102 packages filled with bricks of cocaine, authorities said in a news release.
The craft, of a type known as “speed boats”, was powered by two outboard motors and appeared to be a low-profile semi-submersible craft – commonly referred to as a “narco submarine” – designed to make detection more difficult. .
On board the craft, the Navy arrested nine crew members, including six foreigners. The Navy did not specify their nationalities, but many of the boats found off Mexico have Colombian or Venezuelan crew members.
Authorities released an image of numbered packages containing cocaine flanked by two warships.
Mexican Navy
Cocaine is produced in South America and is usually shipped via the Pacific or Caribbean to reach the US market.
The seizure comes just weeks after the Mexican Navy announced it had seized more than 8.3 tonnes of drugs in the Pacific Ocean, a record for a single operation at sea. The shipment was intercepted from six different vessels, including a “narco sub” that contained approximately 4,800 pounds of narcotics.
The Navy said Tuesday that more than 15,000 kilograms of suspected drugs have been seized at sea under the current administration.
Earlier this year, the Mexican navy seized more than seven tons of suspected cocaine in two separate raids in the Pacific Ocean. dramatic video captured high-speed chases on the high seas.
In September, the U.S. Coast Guard reported offloading more than $54 million worth of cocaine, including more than 1,200 pounds of the drug seized from a “narco submarine.”
Semisubmersibles, which cannot submerge completely underwater, are popular among international drug traffickers because they can sometimes evade detection by law enforcement. The ships are sometimes seized in Colombian waters towards the United States, Central America and Europe. Earlier this summer, Colombia’s navy said it had seized two “narco submarines” off the country’s Pacific coast that together contained nearly 5 tons of cocaine.