More than 7 tons of cocaine was seized from boats in the Caribbean in recent days, Colombia’s navy said, as the U.S. continues to conduct lethal strikes on alleged drug-ferrying vessels in the region.
Authorities confiscated about 7.1 tons of cocaine during two operations in the Caribbean, the country’s navy said in a social media post on Wednesday. One interdiction took place 90 nautical miles from Barranquilla, a city on Colombia’s northern coast, and the other one occurred about 70 miles south of that in the Gulf of Morrosquillo.
The cocaine was valued at more than $340 million and 11 people — eight Colombians, two Venezuelans and one Jamaican — were arrested “without affecting their integrity or their lives,” the navy said in a separate statement.
Authorities released images of the operations, showing photos of the boats involved as well as bricks of the alleged narcotics displayed on the ground next to officers and the detained suspects.
Colombia Navy
The seizures come as Colombian President Gustavo Petro is calling on the U.S. to end strikes in the region against apparent drug-carrying vessels. The U.S. announced another strike Thursday in the Pacific Ocean that the Pentagon said killed four people.
Since September, the U.S. military has launched at least 22 strikes on vessels in the Eastern Pacific and the Caribbean that the Trump administration claims, without providing more evidence, are trafficking drugs. At least 87 people have been killed in the strikes so far.
The latest strike comes as Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth faces scrutiny in the wake of a recent Washington Post report over a Sept. 2 boat strike in the Caribbean that killed 11 people. The report claimed the U.S. military struck the boat with two missiles, a revelation that the White House confirmed. A source familiar with the matter told CBS News on Wednesday that the second strike came as two people who survived the first missile were trying to climb back onto the boat. The survivors were allegedly trying to salvage some of the drugs, according to the source. Some lawmakers have questioned whether the second strike constitutes a war crime.
In an exclusive conversation with CBS News in October, Petro said some of those killed in the U.S. strikes have been innocent civilians, and he reiterated his accusation that the attacks violate international law.
The White House denies those accusations, and President Trump has defended the strikes as a legitimate part of his fight against drug trafficking gangs.
Earlier this week, the family of a Colombian man who was killed in a U.S. military strike on a boat in the Caribbean lodged a complaint against the U.S. with a human rights watchdog, arguing his death was an extrajudicial killing.