1,120 held as Orion operation seized 211 tons of marijuana in 2025
Colombia's Navy presented first-half 2025 results for multinational Operation Orion, reporting 1,120 detentions and a cannabis component of 211 tons of seized marijuana, 1,770 tons with flow interrupted and 12 tons of hashish. An autonomous drug semisubmersible found off Santa Marta was described as Colombia's first seizure of its kind.
Colombian Navy commander Juan Ricardo Roz Obregón presented the first-half 2025
results of the multinational Operation Orion, which gathered 62 allied
countries.[1]The operation has run since 2018 and is coordinated by
Colombia’s Navy.[1]Authorities detained 1,120 people allegedly linked to
criminal activities and seized 130 boats during the period.[1]
Authorities reported 2,320 tons of various drugs seized or with their transit
interrupted.[1]Of those, 1,770 tons of marijuana had their flow interrupted
and 211 tons of marijuana were seized.[1]The same breakdown lists 12 tons of
hashish, alongside 327 tons of cocaine, 452 kilograms of heroin and 118
kilograms of methamphetamines.[1]
Authorities seized an autonomous semisubmersible carrying drugs, described as
the first such find in Colombia.[1]The vessel was found in the Caribbean Sea
near the Colombian city of Santa Marta.[1]The commander said the find
reflects a shift toward more sophisticated unmanned systems that increase
evasion capacity and pose a growing challenge to maritime security.[1]The
Orion report counted 10 such semisubmersibles with radar-evading and
partial-autonomy technology seized at different points across the Americas.[1]
Photos and video
Confiscated autonomous semisubmersible presented by the Colombian Navy. Photo: Armada de ColombiaPhoto details
CNN en Españolcnnespanol.cnn.comESIncautan en Colombia un semisumergible autónomo que transportaba droga. Es el primer hallazgo de este tipo, dice la Armada | CNN
Open questions the AI reported
The article gives no separate dates for the individual seizures, which occurred during the first half of 2025, so 2 July 2025 is used as the incident date for the presentation of the results.
The drug carried by the autonomous semisubmersible found near Santa Marta was reported only as droga and was not identified as cannabis, so the cannabis figures record the campaign totals rather than that vessel alone.
The cannabis figure combines 1,770 tons of marijuana whose flow was reported as interrupted, 211 tons of seized marijuana and 12 tons of hashish whose seizure status was not specified.
The 1,120 detentions and 130 seized boats are operation-wide totals for all reported criminal activity, not cannabis-specific counts.
No locations were published for the cannabis seizures beyond the Santa Marta area for the autonomous vessel and different points across the Americas for the 10 semisubmersibles.
Only one opened source supports this account because a second report of the same Orion results could not be opened.
Coordinates are for Santa Marta and do not mark an exact position at sea.
Army troops seized 1,700 kilograms of pressed marijuana from a van in Santander de Quilichao, Cauca, capturing one person after a pursuit from a military checkpoint. The Third Division attributed the load to the FARC dissidents' Dagoberto Ramos structure and valued the loss to it at more than 425 million pesos.
Colombian army, navy and police units seized about 2,700 kilograms of suspected marijuana from a bongo remolcador river boat at the Hong Kong wharf in Puerto Asís, Putumayo. Authorities linked the load to the Segunda Marquetalia dissidence's Comandos de Frontera, without naming suspects or giving a value.
Colombian police stopped a vehicle in the urban area of Chinchiná, Caldas, carrying 520 kilograms of marijuana and arrested the person caught in the act, immobilising a car with altered identification systems. President Abelardo de la Espriella announced the haul as part of two operations, the other being 358 kilograms of cocaine found in generators at the port of Cartagena.
Colombian National Police investigators seized 7,452 grams of marijuana in the Los Quindos neighbourhood of Armenia, Quindío, along with 98 boxes of clonazepam. Police said the marijuana was meant for sale in minimum doses at sales points around the city and handed the drugs to the local prosecutor's office; no arrests were reported.
