The Mexican Navy introduced on Thursday that it had seized a semi-submersible vessel carrying practically 4 tons of cocaine. The seizure of 179 packages of the drug is the newest end in an effort to curb maritime trafficking of illicit substances throughout the Pacific Ocean—a difficulty additionally being addressed by the USA by means of a collection of lethal assaults within the Caribbean in opposition to vessels suspected of carrying medication.
Omar García Harfuch, Mexico’s secretary of safety, reported in a publish on X that the interception of the vessel—often called a “narco-submarine”—happened in Mexican waters close to Manzanillo, within the state of Colima. Three folks have been arrested over suspected ties to the cargo.
The Mexican navy (Semar) mentioned that the operation concerned an ocean patrol vessel, two fixed-wing plane, two rotary-wing plane, and two interceptor boats. It additionally acquired help from US Northern Command and the Joint Interagency Process Drive, which offered intelligence to find the goal at sea.
Harfuch emphasised that this motion provides to different seizures made throughout the previous week, which have resulted within the confiscation of roughly 10 tons of cocaine. Based on the secretary, “this represents a direct and multimillion-dollar blow to the monetary buildings of organized crime, stopping thousands and thousands of doses from reaching the streets and defending the security of Mexican households.”
Since not less than final 12 months, Semar has been monitoring a transnational community that makes use of the routes often called La Gorgona and El Desierto to move narcotics and different illicit items from Ecuador and Colombia. The route consists of strategic factors such because the Galápagos Islands and Clipperton Island earlier than reaching Mexican shores, together with Punta Tejupán in Michoacán. Based on an investigation revealed by N+ Focus, the ultimate vacation spot of those shipments is the US market.
Felony organizations use speedboats, submarines, and semi-submersibles, usually selfmade from fiberglass, to evade radar and maritime surveillance techniques. Between 2023 and early 2025, monitoring and enforcement operations carried out by Semar resulted within the seizure of greater than 111 tons of cocaine, 223 unlawful maritime vessels, and the arrest of 476 suspected traffickers of Ecuadorian, Mexican, Colombian, and Central American nationalities.
The US authorities has pressured Mexico to accentuate its battle in opposition to drug trafficking. Final 12 months, the trafficking of artificial medication like fentanyl was utilized by the Trump administration as justification for imposing tariffs on Mexican imports.
Since then, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum has introduced a harder technique in opposition to the cartels, which incorporates elevated surveillance on maritime routes and borders, in addition to the extradition of dozens of these convicted of drug trafficking offenses to the USA.
For his half, US president Donald Trump launched a marketing campaign of direct confrontation in opposition to organized crime, even in worldwide waters. Based on The New York Occasions, Trump instructed the Pentagon to make use of navy property in opposition to Latin American cartels designated as terrorist organizations, representing essentially the most aggressive technique of his administration on this space.
Trump’s decree aimed to determine a authorized foundation for conducting each maritime and land navy operations in overseas territory, marking a major shift in US safety coverage by assigning to the navy capabilities historically reserved for legislation enforcement companies.
This coverage led to the primary US assault on a vessel that, in accordance with the Trump administration, was transporting medication from Venezuela to the USA. That incident occurred on September 2 in worldwide waters of the southern Caribbean Sea and left 11 folks useless, allegedly linked to the Tren de Aragua gang. Since then, dozens of comparable assaults have been recorded within the Caribbean and the Pacific, with an estimated dying toll of roughly 145 folks.
This story initially appeared in WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
