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Mexico's Navy Seizes 3,600 Kilos of Cocaine From Smuggling Boat

SEMAR drug bust
Courtesy SEMAR

Published Nov 7, 2024 2:19 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

Mexico's navy has seized about 3,600 kilos of cocaine from a smuggling boat off Guerrero, on Mexico's Pacific coast. 

Last week, a SEMAR aircraft patrol spotted a go-fast boat with nine crewmembers and two outboards. The vessel had about 100 black packages on board. Surface assets intercepted the boat at a position about 130 nautical miles off Acapulco, then seized the drugs and arrested the suspected smugglers. 

The service said that six of the suspects were foreign nationals and three were Mexican citizens. Smuggling-boat crews on the Eastern Pacific trade lanes are typically recruited from coastal communities in Colombia and other drug-producing states. 

Just last month, SEMAR set a new national record with a six-boat simultaneous cocaine bust off Michoacan and Guerrero. The total tally came to a record-setting six boats, 23 suspects, 8.3 tonnes of drugs and 2,300 gallons of fuel. 

Michoacan and Guerrero are a hub for the transshipment of drugs arriving from South America, serving as a stopover point for shipments bound for the U.S. and markets overseas. The region is controlled by multiple feuding gangs, according to Insight Crime, including the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (CJNG) and a variety of smaller, lesser-known local groups.