Personnel from the Mexican Navy (Semar), acting in their coastguard capacity, intercepted a small boat roughly 713 kilometres southwest of Chiapas state. On board were three men and a cargo of 38 bundles containing a substance that displayed the characteristics of cocaine, the navy said in a statement disseminated by local media. The vessel was also carrying 33 drums with approximately 840 litres of fuel and two radio beacons.

According to the navy’s preliminary assessment, the bundles weighed 1,140 kilogrammes including packaging. It estimated the cargo would have fetched roughly 248.9 million pesos on the illicit market and that the seizure prevented more than two million doses from reaching consumers.

The boat, the drugs and the three detainees were taken to Puerto Chiapas and handed over to the federal attorney general’s office (FGR) for official weighing and the opening of a criminal investigation. The interception was the result of routine maritime patrols aimed at curbing the flow of narcotics along the Pacific corridor.

The navy noted that this operation brings the total amount of cocaine seized at sea during the current administration to close to 80 tonnes. Mexican news site Infobae reported that the incident was the second time this month that a drug-carrying vessel had been stopped in the area, indicating the continued pressure on trafficking organisations using maritime routes.