The Mexican Navy (SEMAR) announced on Wednesday that it had seized nearly 2 tonnes of cocaine in two separate actions off the Pacific coast.
In the first incident, naval vessels in the state of Colima were carrying out routine patrols when they came upon a small boat with a six-man crew. Upon boarding the ship, navy personnel uncovered a variety of packages concealing bricks of drugs, according to the navy press statement.
After field tests, navy personnel determined that the merchandise was likely cocaine and seized the packages, which weighed a total of just over 424 kilograms. The six suspects were taken into custody.
In the second incident, navy personnel in Michoacán came upon a number of packages floating in the ocean about 90 kilometers southwest of the port of Lázaro Cárdenas.
SEMAR immediately organized a search operation that collected more than 1.5 tonnes of contraband presumed to be cocaine.
The six suspects and all the drugs were turned over to the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR), which has opened a formal investigation.
This latest seizure comes less than a month after navy personnel confiscated three large shipments of cocaine off the southern Pacific Coast in March, amounting to nearly 3 tonnes of the drug.
That naval action — featuring two separate incidents similar to this week’s events — took place off the coast of the state of Guerrero and was notable for the presence of a considerable number of packages emblazoned with the logo for the comic book character Batman.
In the first incident, a navy patrol found a number of “black sacks” tied together and floating in the ocean about 113 kilometers southeast of Acapulco.
In the second incident, sailors came upon two boats tied together which, when boarded, were found to be carrying roughly 1.3 tonnes of cocaine. The five people on the boats were arrested.
Drug busts off Mexico’s Pacific coast are a frequent occurrence. In 2023, the navy seized a record 48.1 tonnes of cocaine as well as a large quantity of other illegal drugs. In one incident last year, SEMAR captured a semi-submersible carrying 3.5 tonnes of cocaine off the coast of Baja California Sur that they’d been following for hours after spotting it off the Colima coast near Manzanillo.
With reports from Diario de México
