Authorities in the Dominican Republic said Sunday they have confiscated some of the cocaine transported by a speedboat that was destroyed recently by the U.S. Navy, in what the Caribbean nation called the first operation of its kind.
In a news conference, the Dominican Republic’s National Directorate for Drug Control (DNCD) said it recovered 377 packages of cocaine from the boat which was allegedly carrying 1,000 kilograms, or more than 2,200 pounds, of the drug. The drugs were recovered after “an aerial military strike by the United States against a speedboat of narcoterrorists,” the DNCD said in a statement.
Officials said the boat was destroyed about 80 nautical miles south of Isla Beata, a small island that belongs to the Dominican Republic. They said the Dominican’s Republic Navy worked in conjunction with U.S. authorities to locate the speedboat which was allegedly trying to dock in the Dominican Republic and use the nation as a “bridge” to transport cocaine to the United States.
Officials released a video of the operation, showing officers unloading and inspecting bricks of the alleged drugs, some bearing the word “MEN” on the packaging.
“This is the first time in history that the United States and the Dominican Republic carry out a joint operation against narco terrorism in the Caribbean,” the directorate said in a statement.
Authorities in the Dominican Republic said Sunday they have confiscated some of the cocaine transported by a speedboat that was destroyed recently by the U.S. Navy. / Credit: Dominican Republic’s National Directorate for Drug Control
In August, the U.S. sent eight warships and a submarine to the southern Caribbean, in what the Trump administration has said was a mission to fight drug trafficking.
The White House says the naval flotilla has destroyed at least three boats carrying drugs so far. The separate strikes have killed more than a dozen people aboard the vessels.
Authorities did not say if anyone was killed in the strike off the Dominican Republic.
Human rights groups have said the strikes on the boats amount to extra judicial killings, and on Friday two Democratic senators introduced a resolution in Congress that seeks to block the administration from carrying out further strikes.
The Trump administration says two of the boats that have been sunk left from Venezuela, whose president is often described by White House officials as a drug trafficker and leader of a gang known as the Cartel of the Suns.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro denies the charges and has described the U.S naval build up in the Caribbean as an attack on his country. Maduro has called the warships an “absolutely criminal and bloody threat.”
On two occasions earlier this month, Venezuelan fighter jets flew near a U.S. naval ship, in what multiple Defense Department officials described to CBS News as a “game of chicken.”
Venezuela also accused the U.S. of seizing a fishing vessel in its exclusive economic zone and detaining nine fishermen for several hours.
The U.S. Navy has sent several warships to the waters off Venezuela in recent weeks, and 10 F-35 fighter jets were deployed to Puerto Rico this month for anti-cartel operations.
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