The Mexican Navy announced the detection of an unusually large amount of drugs in the waters of the Eastern Pacific.

The Navy located and detained a semi-submersible vessel carrying 3.5 tons of cocaine in the Baja California region, far north of the high-traffic drug-trafficking zones off Central America.

On Thursday, the Mexican Navy’s Secretary reported that a semi-submersible vessel had been spotted by a patrol aircraft on June 27 sailing the Pacific Ocean. Navy vessels with helicopters were deployed to arrest the illegal vessel. When the teams captured and inspected the vessel, they found that it contained 186 packages of cocaine weighing a total of 3.5 tons!

The authorities arrested five people aboard the semi-submersible vessel. All were taken to the Port of La Paz in Baja, California for questioning. In accordance with the Mexican Navy, the semi-submersible vessel was large and designed to have an unusually long range compared to most such vessels of its class.

It was the largest identified, at least since the beginning of Obrador’s administration, with a total length of 26 meters, a transport capacity of several tons, and 20-day endurance. With an estimated cruise speed of 8 knots, the vessel was capable of a voyage of over 3,500 nautical miles.

In theory, this is enough to reach San Diego from the cocaine export regions of Colombia and the Pacific coast. A semi-submersible vessel has never been spotted or reported making a trip on this route.

Semi-submersible vessels are rarely found off the Pacific coast of Mexico and this was the first found by the Mexican Navy this year. Their primary use is to transport cocaine from the coast of Colombia to Central America and they are regularly arrested by US Coast Guard patrols in that region.

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