Bogotá (Colombia) | AFP
Colombia and Ecuador announced the seizure of two drug submarines this weekend as part of a joint operation. Together, the two semisubmersibles transported almost four tons of medication.
This Sunday (21), the Colombian Navy reported in a statement that a 15meter gray drug submarine was intercepted in the waters of the Pacific Ocean, near the port of Buenaventura, in the west of the country. The ship had 795 kilos of cocaine on board. The three crew members were arrested.
On Saturday (22), the armed forces of Ecuador announced the seizure of another semisubmersible with almost three tons of cocaine, also in the Pacific Ocean.
The drug submarine, like the one seized in Colombia, is gray and 15 meters long.
The operation was carried out approximately 60 km off the coast of Esmeraldas, northwest of Ecuador.
According to a statement from the Ecuadorian Armed Forces, the operation was carried out in collaboration with the country's police and the Colombian Navy. Three Colombian citizens were arrested on board the ship.
A UN report says 2022 was a record year for drugrelated crops in Colombia. In the country, the cultivation of coca leaves, the raw material for cocaine production, increased by 13%, reaching 230,000 hectares of cultivated area.
Although Ecuador does not produce cocaine, it is one of the main drug trafficking corridors on the continent and serves as a transshipment and transit point for cocaine from Colombia.
Ecuador ended 2023 with an unprecedented rate of 46 murders per 100,000 inhabitants and began 2024 with a wave of violence that caused panic on the 9th, with bombings and kidnappings like that of a live TV station.