Colombia’s Navy, working with the Colombian Air Force, carried out a joint operation against drug trafficking in the Caribbean Sea.[1] Surface units and naval aviation detected and pursued a boat crewed by a Colombian man and a Dominican man.[1] The two men were transporting more than 342 kilograms of drugs in a go-fast boat heading for a port in the Dominican Republic.[1] After the pursuit, a Navy coast guard unit intercepted the boat 19 nautical miles north of Puerto Bolívar, in La Guajira department.[1]

Inside the boat, officers found 16 sacks holding 488 rectangular packages of the kind traffickers use to move illicit drugs, along with a pistol and ammunition.[1] The ammunition amounted to 11 cartridges of different calibers.[2] Preliminary identification tests (PIPH) confirmed 202.9 kilograms of cocaine hydrochloride and 139.9 kilograms of marijuana.[1] The substances were tested once the packages were taken ashore.[3] The Navy said the operation prevented the sale of 507,000 doses of cocaine and 23,000 doses of marijuana on the international illegal market.[1] Authorities said the combined cocaine and marijuana seizure kept 7.7 million dollars from reaching the trafficking organisations operating in the region.[3]

The two detainees and the seized material were handed to the CTI, the Attorney General’s Office’s investigative body, for prosecution.[1] The Navy’s Caribbean Naval Force said it would continue joint operations against drug transport along maritime corridors.[1]