A US Coast Guard crew operating from San Juan, alongside Homeland Security Task Force partners, has intercepted a drug-smuggling vessel in the Atlantic Ocean north of Puerto Rico, seizing cocaine worth more than $7 million and arresting three suspects.
The operation was set in motion when a Coast Guard surveillance aircraft spotted a suspicious 25-foot go-fast boat in international waters north of Vega Baja.
Sector San Juan command staff directed the cutter Joseph Tezanos and a response boat crew to intercept, while a Customs and Border Protection aircraft kept the vessel under constant watch from the air. The Coast Guard team boarded the boat, detained the three men on board and recovered 506 kilograms of cocaine packed into 16 bales.
The suspects and the contraband were later handed over to Homeland Security Task Force law enforcement partners in San Juan for prosecution.
Coast Guard officials said the success of the mission reflected strong cooperation between federal agencies and local law enforcement in countering maritime trafficking routes in the Caribbean.
The seizure was carried out under the Homeland Security Task Force initiative created to dismantle transnational criminal networks involved in drug trafficking and human smuggling across US maritime approaches.
The operation also comes against the backdrop of an intensified US counter-narcotics campaign at sea, which in recent months has shifted from traditional interdiction-and-arrest tactics towards a broader strategy aimed at disrupting smuggling networks, their vessels and logistics chains.
Officials say the evolving approach is designed to raise the cost of maritime trafficking operations and strengthen deterrence, as authorities continue to tighten security across key drug transit corridors in the region.