The Mexican Navy on Wednesday announced that its personnel had seized around 1,600 kilograms of cocaine from a vessel on the open sea southwest of Acapulco, Guerrero.
The Ministry of the Navy (SEMAR) and other federal security authorities said in a statement that Navy personnel performing Coast Guard functions off Mexico’s Pacific coast seized 54 packages containing a total of 1,600 packages of cocaine.
The cocaine-carrying vessel was located during “maritime and aerial patrols to maintain the rule of law,” according to the SEMAR statement.
Navy vessels and aircraft were monitoring known drug trafficking routes, the ministry said.
SEMAR said that the seizure was “part of the actions to prevent illicit substances reaching the streets.”
No arrests were reported. The confiscated cocaine was turned over to the “appropriate authority,” SEMAR said.
With the latest seizure, more than 48 metric tons of cocaine have now been confiscated since President Claudia Sheinbaum took office on Oct. 1, 2024, according to security authorities.
The confiscations of the drug have stopped around 3.2 billion “doses” of cocaine from reaching the “hands of young people,” SEMAR said.
It also said that the economic impact of the seizures on criminal groups was 371.8 billion pesos (US $20.06 billion).
Mexican cartels ship large quantities of narcotics, including cocaine, to the United States, the world’s largest market for illicit drugs.
In its 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment report, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said that “Colombia remains the primary source country for cocaine entering the United States, followed by Peru and Bolivia.
“Mexico-based cartels obtain multi-ton cocaine shipments from South America and smuggle it via sea, air, or overland to Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean for subsequent movement into the United States,” the DEA said.
245 metric tons of drugs seized in 11 months
Earlier this week, federal Security Minister Omar García Harfuch said that authorities had seized 245 metric tons of drugs since the current government took office last October.
He told Sheinbaum’s Tuesday morning press conference that the amount included more than 3.6 million fentanyl pills.
García Harfuch also said that the Mexican Army and Navy have shut down 1,400 methamphetamine laboratories in the past 11 months.
“As a result, millions of doses of drugs have been kept off the streets, and hundreds of millions of pesos have been prevented from reaching organized crime,” he said.
The Mexican government has come under intense pressure from its U.S. counterpart to do more to combat drug cartels and stop the northward flow of narcotics.
So-called “fentanyl tariffs” that U.S. President Donald Trump imposed in March remain in effect. They target imports from Mexico that don’t comply with the rules of the USMCA free trade pact.
Mexico News Daily
