2.4 tons of cocaine seized from fishing boat in Atlantic Ocean after tip from customs division

The French navy has seized 2.4 tons of cocaine from a Venezuelan fishing boat within the Atlantic, authorities mentioned Monday.

Performing on a tip from the customs division, a helicopter from the surveillance frigate Ventose landed a crew on the fishing boat about 1,500 kilometers northeast of the Caribbean island of Martinique, France’s Caribbean Armed Companies division mentioned.  

The boat, the crew and the cocaine had been handed over to Venezuelan authorities, the division mentioned in a Fb submit.

The incident marked one more massive seizure of cocaine in the identical waters this month. On Could 2 and Could 9, authorities mentioned the Ventôse and the patrol vessel La Résolue seized 2,466 kilograms of cocaine within the Atlantic, off the coast of the Antilles. The French navy posted photos of the seizure.

The army division mentioned it had now seized greater than 12 tons of narcotics this yr. The Caribbean is taking up rising significance within the trafficking of cocaine from South America to Europe and North America.

The 22.7 tons of cocaine intercepted within the area in 2022 was greater than 5 instances the determine of a decade earlier.

Worldwide drug traffickers routinely use totally different sorts of boats to maneuver narcotics. Earlier this month, Italian police introduced the seizure of a remote-controlled submarine seemingly supposed to move medication as a part of a global drug trafficking community.

A lot bigger semi-submersibles, which can not go totally underwater, are common amongst worldwide drug traffickers as they’ll usually elude detection by authorities. The so-called “narco-subs” are typically seized in Colombian waters whereas heading to america, Central America and Europe.  

Colombia produces about 60% of the cocaine discovered on this planet.