Hit against drug trafficking: Navy seizes three tons of cocaine on the high seas in Quintana Roo

There were also 18 drums of hydrocarbon on the smaller boat.

The Secretary of the Navy (Semar) announced this May 14 the seizure of an important illicit shipment off the coast of Quintana Roo.

In recent operations, carried out by the Ninth Naval Region and the Seventeenth Naval Zone, located in Isla Mujeres and Chetumal, respectively, 153 rectangular packages containing a suspicious white powder, with a total weight of more than three tons, were seized. which exhibits similarities with cocaine.

This discovery occurred during maritime and aerial surveillance routines focused on maintaining legal order in the region.

The forces of the Mexican Navy, using an aircraft and an ocean patrol, intercepted a smaller vessel that was hiding not only the aforementioned white powder but also 18 drums of hydrocarbon.

The three alleged offenders on board were detained, and after being read their human rights, the procedure began to formulate the corresponding investigation folder in collaboration with the competent authorities.

In December 2023, Infobae México reported that the Mexican Caribbean area is of utmost importance for connections between Mexican and Colombian drug cartels due to the shipment of tons of cocaine from the South American country, using clandestine runways built in Tulum and Cancun.

Since 2020, Semar and the Drug Control Administration (DEA) have identified at least three air routes used by the Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartels (CJNG) to transport illegal substances from Colombia through of the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.

The routes drawn by the authorities start from Ecuador and Venezuela towards Honduras, Belize and Guatemala, which reach the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas and Quintana Roo, where executive aircraft usually land.

The Secretary of the Navy has made several drug seizures on the high seas on the different coasts of the Mexican Republic, but it has also done so in seaports as part of its surveillance activities, such as the one announced on May 10 in Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacan.

Semar reported on the seizure of 300 bricks of cocaine hydrochloride, weighing approximately 300 kilograms, in the port of Lázaro Cárdenas.

Personnel from the Fourteenth Naval Zone, acting as Coast Guard, managed to secure this drug after coordination actions between naval personnel and Maritime Customs in the port.

“The seized drugs were made available to the Attorney General’s Office for the integration of the corresponding investigation file,” Semar detailed in a statement.

It should be noted that the extended operations of the Mexican cartels, especially the CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel, have monopolized control and dispute over seaports, such as that of Lázaro Cárdenas; Manzanillo, Colima; Mazatlán, Sinaloa, mainly, according to the DEA’s latest National Threat Assessment.

In the first half of last year, the Navy reported that it dismantled at least 15 supply platforms used by drug traffickers in the Pacific Ocean.

The security of these supply centers were located on the coasts of Colima, Michoacán, Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas.

The image presented by the Navy details that one of the platforms was located 212 nautical miles from the Port of Manzanillo, Colima. In the case of the Port of Lázaro Cardenas, Michoacán, three of these platforms were found, which were 27, 130 and 205 nautical miles away, respectively.

Source: infobae