MEXICO CITY: The navies of El Salvador and Mexico announced drug seizures in the Pacific Ocean this week of more than 10 tons of cocaine, in contrast to deadly strikes by the US government that just this week left 11 people dead on three boats suspected of carrying drugs in Latin American waters.
The latest announcement came Thursday, when Mexico said it had seized nearly four tons of suspected drugs and detained three people from a semisubmersible craft, 250 nautical miles (463 kilometers) south of the port of Manzanillo.
Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch said via X that the seizure from the sleek, low-riding boat with three visible motors brought the weekly total to nearly 10 tons, but he did not provide detail on the other seizures.
Mexican authorities said the seizure was made with intelligence shared US Northern Command and the US Joint Interagency Task Force South.
On Sunday, El Salvador’s navy announced the largest drug seizure in the country’s history of 6.6 tons of cocaine. The navy had intercepted a 180-foot boat registered to Tanzania, 380 miles (611 kilometers) southwest of the coast. Navy divers found 330 packages of cocaine hidden in the boat’s ballast tanks. Ten men were arrested from Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama and Ecuador.
