The Mexican Navy introduced on Thursday that it had seized a semi-submersible vessel carrying almost 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 problem additionally being addressed by the United States by way of a series of deadly attacks in the Caribbean in opposition to vessels suspected of carrying medication.
Omar García Harfuch, Mexico’s secretary of safety, reported in a post on X that the interception of the vessel—often known as a “narco-submarine”—happened in Mexican waters close to Manzanillo, in the state of Colima. Three folks have been arrested over suspected ties to the cargo.
The Mexican navy (Semar) said that the operation concerned an ocean patrol vessel, two fixed-wing plane, two rotary-wing plane, and two interceptor boats. It additionally acquired assist from US Northern Command and the Joint Interagency Process Pressure, which supplied intelligence to find the goal at sea.
Harfuch emphasised that this motion provides to different seizures made throughout the previous week, which have resulted in the confiscation of roughly 10 tons of cocaine. In accordance to the secretary, “this represents a direct and multimillion-dollar blow to the monetary buildings of organized crime, stopping hundreds of thousands of doses from reaching the streets and defending the security of Mexican households.”
Since a minimum of final 12 months, Semar has been monitoring a transnational community that makes use of the routes often known as La Gorgona and El Desierto to transport narcotics and different illicit items from Ecuador and Colombia. The route contains strategic factors similar to the Galápagos Islands and Clipperton Island before reaching Mexican shores, together with Punta Tejupán in Michoacán. In accordance to an investigation published by N+ Focus, the last vacation spot of those shipments is the US market.
Prison organizations use speedboats, submarines, and semi-submersibles, typically do-it-yourself from fiberglass, to evade radar and maritime surveillance methods. Between 2023 and early 2025, monitoring and enforcement operations carried out by Semar resulted in 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 intensify its combat 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 more durable 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 United States.
For his half, US president Donald Trump launched a marketing campaign of direct confrontation in opposition to organized crime, even in worldwide waters. In accordance to The New York Times, Trump instructed the Pentagon to use navy belongings in opposition to Latin American cartels designated as terrorist organizations, representing the most aggressive technique of his administration on this space.
Trump’s decree aimed to set up a authorized foundation for conducting each maritime and land navy operations in overseas territory, marking a big shift in US safety coverage by assigning to the navy features historically reserved for legislation enforcement businesses.
This coverage led to the first US assault on a vessel that, in accordance to the Trump administration, was transporting medication from Venezuela to the United States. 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 in the Caribbean and the Pacific, with an estimated death toll of roughly 145 folks.
This story initially appeared in WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
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