Authorities seized more than six tons of cocaine from a semi-submersible vessel — a so-called “narco sub” — and from two underground hiding places discovered in Colombia, the country’s navy announced this week.
Officials released video of the narco sub being intercepted off the country’s Pacific coast, as well as video showing officers and a sniffer dog locating stashes of cocaine that were buried underground. The navy also released an image of more than 100 packages of the alleged narcotics laid out on the shore next to a military boat.
Officials said the street value of the seized cocaine was estimated to be about $300 million.
The navy said the narcotics were intercepted in Narino, a region on the Pacific coast of Colombia bordering Ecuador. They did not say how many people were arrested or where they believe the haul of drugs on the semi-submersible was headed.
Officials said 3,000 kilograms of cocaine was seized at sea while 270 kilograms of cocaine was unearthed from the buried hiding spots.
“The national navy reaffirms its commitment in the fight against drug trafficking and will continue to develop massive operations against organized armed groups,” a navy spokesman said.
A day earlier, Colombia’s navy said forces had seized about three tons of narcotics in the Pacific Ocean that were headed to Central America. Some of the drugs were intercepted after navy ships chased a “vessel moving suspiciously,” authorities said, and three people were arrested. The drugs were worth an estimated $97 million.
Narco subs typically sit very low on the ocean’s surface but cannot go fully underwater. They are popular among international drug traffickers because they can often elude detection by authorities.
Though commonly caught off the coast of Colombia, which produces the majority of cocaine found in the world, narco subs have been spotted across the globe in recent months.
In March, Portuguese police said forces had confiscated nearly 6.5 tons of cocaine from a semi-submersible vessel off the remote Azores archipelago that was bound for the Iberian peninsula. In January, a suspected narco sub broke in two pieces as a fishing boat was towing it to a port in northwest Spain.
In November 2024, the Mexican navy said it seized about 8,000 pounds of cocaine aboard a semi-submersible about 150 miles off the resort of Acapulco. Two months before that, the U.S. Coast Guard said it had offloaded more than $54 million worth of cocaine — including over 1,200 pounds of drugs that were seized from a narco sub.
