Mexico and El Salvador make big cocaine seizures at sea as US continues lethal strikes

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — The navies of El Salvador and Mexico announced drug seizures in the Pacific Ocean this week of more than 10 tonnes of cocaine, in contrast to deadly strikes by the U.S. government that just this week left 11 people dead on three boats suspected of carrying drugs in Latin American waters.

The latest announcement came Thursday, when Mexico said it had seized nearly four tonnes of suspected drugs and detained three people from a semisubmersible craft, 250 nautical miles (463 kilometers) south of the port of Manzanillo.

Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch said via X that the seizure from the sleek, low-riding boat with three visible motors brought the weekly total to nearly 10 tonnes, but he did not provide detail on the other seizures.

Mexican authorities said the seizure was made with intelligence shared U.S. Northern Command and the U.S. Joint Interagency Task Force South.

On Sunday, El Salvador’s navy announced the largest drug seizure in the country’s history of 6.6 tonnes of cocaine. The navy had intercepted a 180-foot boat registered to Tanzania, 380 miles (611 kilometers) southwest of the coast. Navy divers found 330 packages of cocaine hidden in the boat’s ballast tanks. Ten men were arrested from Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama and Ecuador.

On Thursday, Salvadoran authorities gave access to the seized ship FMS Eagle, which had just arrived in the port of La Union. More than 200 wrapped bundles were lined up on the deck.

The Trump administration has pressured Mexico to make more drug seizures over the past year. The trafficking of drugs like fentanyl was the president’s justification for tariffs on Mexican imports.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has responded with a more aggressive stance toward drug cartels than her predecessor, that has included sending dozens of drug trafficking prisoners to the United States for prosecution.

Sheinbaum has also expressed her disagreement with strikes by the U.S. military in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean against boats suspected of carrying drugs.

At least 145 people have been killed in those strikes since the U.S. government began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” last September.

The U.S. strikes this week included two vessels carrying four people each in the eastern Pacific Ocean and another boat in the Caribbean carrying three people. The administration provided images of the boats being destroyed, but not evidence they were carrying drugs.