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“Narco sub” carrying 8,000 pounds of cocaine intercepted in Pacific Ocean, Mexican Navy says
The Mexican Navy said Tuesday it has seized 3.6 tons (about 8,000 pounds) of cocaine aboard a “narco sub” off the Pacific coast which was spotted earlier this week about 153 miles off the resort of Acapulco.
Navy ships arrived to intercept the boat, which was carrying 102 packages filled with bricks of cocaine, authorities said in a news release.
The craft, of a type known as “go-fast boats,” was powered by two outboard motors and appeared to be a low-profile, semi-submersible craft — commonly known as a “narco sub” — designed to make detection more difficult.
Aboard the craft, the Navy detained nine crew members, six of whom were foreigners. The Navy did not specify their nationalities, but many of the boats found off Mexico have Colombian or Venezuelan crew members.
Officials released an image of numbered packages containing the cocaine flanked by two naval ships.
Mexican Navy
Cocaine is produced in South America and is usually shipped through the Pacific or the Caribbean to reach the U.S. market.
The seizure comes just weeks after the Mexican navy announced it had seized more than 8.3 tons of drugs in the Pacific Ocean, a record for a single operation at sea. The cargo was intercepted from six different vessels, including a “narco sub” that held about 4,800 pounds of narcotics.
The Navy said Tuesday that more than 15,000 kilograms of alleged drugs have been seized at sea under the current administration.
Earlier this year, Mexico’s Navy seized more than seven tons of suspected cocaine in two separate raids in the Pacific Ocean, and dramatic video captured the high-speed chases on the open sea.
In September, the U.S. Coast Guard said that it had offloaded more than $54 million worth of cocaine — including over 1,200 pounds of drugs that were seized from a “narco sub.”
Semi-submersibles, which cannot go fully underwater, are popular among international drug traffickers as they can sometimes elude detection by law enforcement. The vessels are sometimes seized in Colombian waters while heading to the United States, Central America and Europe. Earlier this summer, the Colombian Navy said it seized two “narco subs” off the country’s Pacific coast that together contained almost 5 tons of cocaine.
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As the 2024 election results continued rolling in Wednesday morning, the outcomes of federal and state races took shape across the United States. A handful of them marked historic victories, with Congress’ first transgender representative and Maryland’s first Black senator among them.
In New Mexico, voters elected Cindy Nava to join the state legislature, paving the way for a former undocumented person and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, recipient to hold a position in public office.
Nava, a Democrat, won New Mexico’s state Senate contest in District 9, which includes a region just north of Albuquerque. She bested Republican candidate Audrey Trujillo with 55% of the vote, according to results shared online by the New Mexico Secretary of State’s office.
Originally from Mexico, Nava came to the U.S. as a young child with her family. She was a Dreamer — a recipient of the DACA program — which was designed to protect undocumented people who arrived in the country as children from being deported. The Obama-era policy took effect in 2012.
Years later, after graduating from college in New Mexico, Nava was appointed to serve as a senior policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Biden administration. She was the first former DACA recipient appointed by the White House, said Nava in a biography that appears on her campaign website.
“I am the first in my family to graduate college, and the first Dreamer (DACA recipient) in the country to be appointed by the White House,” the bio reads. “Now, I am among a small handful of Dreamers in the country who are running for public office.”
Nava’s victory in New Mexico’s state legislature was unprecedented because a former DACA recipient had never successfully become an elected official before this latest election. She could potentially share that milestone with Luis Mata, a Democratic candidate for Tennessee’s House of Representatives in 2024 who was also a Dreamer.
Historic election triumphs touched multiple states.
Delaware
Delaware made huge strides in the 2024 congressional elections. Sarah McBride, a Democrat who has served in the Delaware State Senate and worked in the Obama administration, won her U.S. House race and became the first openly transgender person elected to Congress.
U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, also a Democrat, also became the first woman and the first Black person elected to serve in the U.S. Senate from Delaware. She reached the same milestone for Delaware when she was elected to represent the state in the House in 2017.
The upcoming congressional term will mark the first time two Black women serve simultaneously in the Senate, owing to Rochester’s victory in Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks’ victory in Maryland.
Maryland
Alsobrooks, a Democrat, will become Maryland’s first Black senator after winning her congressional race. She currently serves as the county executive for Prince George’s County, near Washington, D.C.
New Jersey
Democrat Andy Kim won his congressional race in New Jersey, becoming the first Korean American person elected to the U.S. Senate.
North Dakota
Julie Fedorchak, a Republican who sits on North Dakota’s public service commission, will become the first woman from the state in Congress. She was elected to represent North Dakota in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Ohio
Republican Bernie Moreno, of Ohio, became the first Latino elected to the U.S. Senate in that state.