A U.S. task force aided in seizing roughly 5,826 pounds of marijuana and 661 pounds of cocaine in a maritime interdiction.
The go-fast vessel was detected by a U.S. maritime patrol aircraft. U.S. forces partnered with Costa Rican authorities, who launched interceptors, intercepted the vessel, and towed it to a port, the Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATFS) said in a Nov. 12 post on X. Two individuals were arrested.
JIATFS carries out detection and monitoring activities in support of operations aimed at identifying and dismantling narco-terrorist networks operating across the Eastern Pacific and the Caribbean.
JIATFS was involved in another interdiction in which a U.S. maritime patrol aircraft detected and monitored a suspicious vessel, while Colombian authorities intercepted the boat in the country’s northern Pacific region.
Authorities confiscated 668 pounds of marijuana and roughly 6.39 pounds of cocaine hydrochloride. Authorities detained eight people during the interdiction.
The United States and other nations in the Americas have formed the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition to tackle drug trafficking in the region.
“The cartels thought they could just poison the American people and hide from justice, so we formed a Counter Cartel Coalition, designated them terrorists, and hunted them at sea, and now on land,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said during a Nov. 10 press briefing.
“More than 70 narco vessels sunk, 218 narco-terrorists dead, where they should be, maritime smuggling down at least 65 percent and dropping even further, thousands of American lives saved with every drug boat sunk and every shipment prevented.”
Hegseth highlighted that the coalition was a mutually beneficial partnership. The United States gets to prevent drugs from coming into the country, while other partner nations get to tackle the drug threats facing them.
“Both sides win in that dynamic,” Hegseth said.
Crackdown on Drug Traffickers
Two drug trafficking organizations, Los Mendoza and Los Huistas, both from Guatemala, were sanctioned this week by the Department of the Treasury.
The organizations have ties with the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) and Sinaloa cartel, Mexico’s largest narco-terrorist groups. Los Mendoza and Los Huistas control trafficking corridors along Guatemalan borders with Mexico and Honduras, which makes them “indispensable logistics partners” for CJNG and Sinaloa, according to a Nov. 13 statement from the Treasury.
“Under President [Donald] Trump’s America First agenda, the Treasury Department will continue to target the criminal networks that enable violent organizations like the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG to traffic drugs across our borders and threaten the safety of the American people,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the statement.
Eight maritime interdictions of suspected drug trafficking vessels linked to the Los Choneros organization were carried out by U.S. forces under Operation Southern Spear in the July-September quarter, according to a Nov. 9 report from the lead inspector general for the operation.
“U.S. forces cleared the boats, disembarked the crew, and sank the vessels. Individuals removed were transferred to Ecuadorian authorities,” the report said.
Los Choneros was designated a foreign terrorist organization and a specially designated global terrorist in 2025, according to the Department of State. The U.S. military has sunk multiple floating refueling stations linked to the group that was supporting maritime drug trafficking operations.
