In a high-speed helicopter chase last week, the Mexican Navy busted a large 1,700-kilo shipment of cocaine aboard a single motorboat far off the coast of Chiapas, reports the Maritime Executive.
The Mexican Navy said that it received intelligence of a pending cocaine shipment and deployed assets to the transit area, located some 200 nm southwest of Puerto Chiapas. The region is at the northern end of the busy Eastern Pacific transit corridor for cocaine shipments from Colombia.
A video of the chase shows that the Mexican Navy used a helicopter and the patrol ship ARM Chiapas to pursue the suspect vessel. Uniquely, it appears to show Mexican Navy personnel descending from the helicopter to board the drug-running boat and complete the interdiction – a task typically assigned to a boarding team on a pursuit boat.
Eight suspects were arrested and transferred to the authorities at Tapachula, Chiapas for prosecution. The boarding team also confiscated about 1,700 kilos of cocaine for destruction.
The service put the value of the seizure at about $24 million; if delivered to the United States, the same cargo of cocaine would be worth about twice that amount.
En coordinación con la @FGRMexico logramos el aseguramiento de una embarcación con aproximadamente 1,700 kilogramos de presunta cocaína, al Suroeste de Puerto Chiapas, Chiapas.#ArmadaDeMéxico #ParaServirAMéxico
Conoce más en: https://t.co/NU3HYjWIUU pic.twitter.com/HiIwlqczkI
— SEMAR México (@SEMAR_mx) September 12, 2022
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Source: The Maritime Executive
