Panamanian authorities have intercepted one of the largest drug shipments in the country’s history—13.2 tons of cocaine bound for the United States—during a Monday operation in the Pacific.
Prosecutor Julio Villareal said 10 suspects, including Venezuelan, Ecuadorian, and Nicaraguan nationals, were arrested aboard a ferry that had departed from Colombia. Officials recovered over 11,500 packages of cocaine.
Panama, a key transit point for South American narcotics headed to the U.S., seized a total of 119 metric tons of drugs in 2023. The massive bust comes as Washington increases its anti-drug military presence across Latin America—a campaign some countries, including Venezuela, claim is politically motivated.
Recent months have seen record seizures worldwide, from Spain’s 6.5-ton cocaine haul off the Canary Islands to the French navy’s 10-ton bust off West Africa. U.S. Coast Guard officials say they’ve confiscated over half a million pounds of cocaine in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean this fiscal year—the largest total in their history.
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