Mexican Navy seizes more than four tons of cocaine after high-speed sea chase

Dramatic new footage from the Mexican Navy shows officers conducting a major drug raid after a high-speed chase at sea.

The footage, widely reported in the media, shows two naval operations; One shows an officer dismounting from a helicopter and arriving on a boat carrying a large quantity of drugs.

According to CTV News, “Mexican authorities said they seized about 9,700 pounds of cocaine in two operations on August 22 and 23 in the Pacific Ocean.”

“Both sorties resulted in high-speed chases at sea,” reported CTV News. “Mexican authorities say they also found more than 5,000 liters of fuel. Eleven people were arrested and handed over to the public prosecutor.”

The cocaine trade has exploded in recent years.

A United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report released earlier this year shows that cocaine production has risen to record levels after a time lag during the pandemic.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disruptive impact on drug markets. With international travel severely restricted, manufacturers struggled to get their product to market. Nightclubs and bars have been closed as authorities ramped up efforts to contain the virus, leading to a drop in demand for drugs like cocaine, which are often associated with these establishments,” the report said.

“However, the latest data suggests that this slump had little impact on longer-term trends. The global supply of cocaine is at record levels. Almost 2,000 tons were produced in 2020. This continued the dramatic increase in production that began in 2014 when the total was less than half of today’s levels.”

According to the report, the rise in cocaine use has increased “in part…”. [been] This is the result of an expansion in coca cultivation, which doubled between 2013 and 2017, peaked in 2018 and surged again in 2021.”

“But it is also due to improvements in the process of converting coca bush into cocaine hydrochloride. At the same time, demand has steadily increased, with most regions seeing steady increases in user numbers over the past decade. Although this increase can be partially explained by population growth, there is also an increasing prevalence of cocaine use. Law enforcement interceptions have also increased, faster than production, meaning that interceptions have stemmed the growth in the amount of cocaine available for consumption worldwide,” the report said.

Given all of this, it’s perhaps no coincidence that news of large cocaine installments surface regularly these days.

In June, Uruguayan police officers broke up an international drug ring after local police were alerted to half a dozen surfboards containing a total of 50kg of cocaine.

Three Italians were arrested as part of the raid.

In May, police in Hong Kong seized $82.97 million worth of cocaine and cannabis.

And in February, law enforcement officials in New Zealand announced they had seized “3.2 tons of floating cocaine” in the Pacific Ocean and said they had phased out about half a billion dollars worth of the drug.

The United Nations report said the consolidation has turned the cocaine trade upside down in Colombia, one of the drug’s longstanding hubs.

“The cocaine trade in Colombia was once controlled by just a few major players. “As a result of the fragmentation of the criminal landscape following the demobilization of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) in 2016, criminal groups of all sizes, structures and targets are now involved,” the report said. “However, there have been signs of consolidation in some of these groups recently. These developments have led to an increasing presence of foreign actors in Colombia. Criminal groups from Mexico and the Balkans have moved closer to the production center for access to supplies and large quantities of cocaine. These foreign groups do not aim to take control of the territory. Instead, they are trying to make the supply lines more efficient. Their presence helps incentivize the cultivation of coca bush and funds all stages of the supply chain.”

It went on to say: “In established cocaine markets, the proportion of the general population using the drug is high. But these markets only cover about a fifth of the world’s population. As adoption increases in other regions to keep up with established markets, the number of users worldwide would increase enormously due to the large underlying population. This type of market convergence has already occurred in western and central Europe, where purity levels and prices have converged with those in the United States, although the prevalence of cocaine use in western and central Europe has not yet reached levels in the United States.”