This Friday, October 18, the Mexican authorities welcomed a seizure operation of non-standard drugs. More than 8 tonnes of narcotics were seized by the sailors.
The Mexican navy announced this Friday, October 18, the seizure of 8.3 tons of drugs in the Pacific, its record for an operation at sea.
The value of the seized goods represents an amount of 2.099 billion pesos (134.5 million euros), the navy said in a press release, without specifying what drugs were involved.
“This represents the largest quantity of drugs seized during a maritime operation, unprecedented in the history of the institution,” she said.
This seizure was made southwest of the town of Lazaro Cardenas, in the state of Michoacan, on the west coast of Mexico.
23 arrests
During the operation, the navy said it boarded six boats – five speedboats and a semi-submersible about 15 meters long – and arrested 23 people.
The largest drug seizure in Mexican history, 23 tons of Colombian cocaine, took place in November 2007.
Mexico has for decades been the hub of drug trafficking to North America, an activity over which a large number of cartels are fighting to control.
The state of Michoacan, off the coast of which the seizure took place, is the scene of incessant struggles between criminal gangs, including the powerful Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartel.
Coming to power on October 1, the new president of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum presented a few days later a “national security plan” to curb the violence in her country, focusing on the most dangerous states, located in the North or on the Pacific coast.
