Authorities in the Dominican Republic said Sunday, September 21 they have confiscated part of a cocaine shipment from a speedboat recently destroyed by the US Navy, as Washington intensifies its anti-narcotics mission in the southern Caribbean.
The National Directorate for Drug Control announced that 377 packages of cocaine were recovered from the vessel, which was allegedly carrying about 1,000 kilograms of the drug.
Officials said the boat was destroyed about 80 nautical miles south of Isla Beata, a small Dominican island. The country’s navy worked with US authorities to locate the speedboat, which they said was attempting to dock in the Dominican Republic to use the nation as a “bridge” for trafficking cocaine to the United States.
“This is the first time in history that the United States and the Dominican Republic have carried out a joint operation against narco-terrorism in the Caribbean,” the directorate said in a statement.
In August, the US deployed eight warships and a submarine to the region in what the Trump administration described as a mission to combat drug trafficking. According to the White House, the flotilla has destroyed three speedboats carrying drugs in separate operations that killed more than a dozen people on board.
Human rights groups have criticized the strikes as extrajudicial killings. On Friday, two Democratic senators introduced a resolution in Congress seeking to block the administration from conducting further attacks.
US officials say at least two of the destroyed boats departed from Venezuela, accusing President Nicolás Maduro of being a drug trafficker and leader of the Cartel of the Suns. Maduro has denied the allegations, calling the US naval buildup an act of aggression against his country.
