A British warship and an American patrol plane pursued a speedboat as its crew attempted to escape and dump its drug load into the water close to the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to authorities on Monday. The action looked like it was taken from a Hollywood script.
The suspected drug-smuggling boat was eventually stopped by British sailors on HMS Trent and a U.S. Coast Guard team, who retrieved over 6,000 pounds of cocaine and other contraband, according to a news release from the U.K. Ministry of Defence. The estimated street value of the medicines was $280 million.
“During a high-speed chase, the smugglers tried to offload their illegal cargo, but Royal Marines coxswains and the USCG boarding team closed in, took control of the vessel, and detained four crew members,” the ministry stated.
The HMS Trent crew searched 24 square miles of the Caribbean Sea south of the U.S. Virgin Islands for ten hours after the boat was seized, and they eventually found about 2,000 pounds of cocaine, according to officials. Three weeks had passed since HMS Trent had, in a different operation in January, confiscated $90 million worth of cocaine.
The @RoyalNavy is disrupting drug networks across the 🌍
Nearly £300m of class-A drugs were seized by the crew of @HMSTrent in the Caribbean Sea in two huge busts.
Their relentless efforts abroad are keeping drugs off our streets at home.
Read more: https://t.co/tqx7CznmZB pic.twitter.com/SaRTNzPvmy
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 4, 2024
The crew was compelled to push their boats to the limit during the operation, according to a Royal Marine who participated in the most recent seizure.
The Marine, who wished to remain anonymous for operational reasons, stated, “Despite their best efforts to evade us, they finally gave up the chase and we were able to get alongside and enable members of the U.S. Coast Guard to seize the vessel.”
Commanding Officer Tim Langford thanked the U.S. Coast Guard team and the British crew in a statement for a job well done on the bust.
“The achievements of this ship and her crew in the last nine months have been spectacular, and it is brilliant to see the hard work and dedication of this amazing team paying off,” Langford stated. “The team is rightly proud of their efforts, and those of our USCG colleagues.”
Although the specific time of the seizure and the location of the purported drugs were not disclosed by the officials, South America is the source of many drugs trafficking in the Caribbean Sea, particularly Colombia, which generates over 60% of the world’s cocaine.
Over 1.3 million tons of cocaine were taken from vessels by the Colombian navy last month during three different operations in the Caribbean Sea. When they noticed police approaching, the crew members of one of the suspected vessels reportedly abandoned ship, according to officials.
Apart from speedboats, semi-submersibles, which are often referred to as “narco subs,” are favored by drug traffickers in the Caribbean because they may evade detection by law enforcement. The ships never submerge completely, and on their way to Europe, Central America, and the United States, they are occasionally stopped.
