Dominican Republic Says It Seized Cocaine From Speedboat Destroyed by U.S. Navy

The Dominican Republic said Sunday it recovered 377 packages of cocaine from a speedboat destroyed recently by the U.S. Navy as part of a broader anti-narcotics effort in the southern Caribbean. Officials said the vessel was carrying about 1,000 kilograms of cocaine and was destroyed roughly 80 nautical miles south of Isla Beata, a Dominican-ruled island.

The Dominican Republic's National Directorate for Drug Control said investigators recovered the 377 packages from the wreckage and that the operation involved cooperation between the Dominican Republic Navy and U.S. authorities to locate the speedboat, which officials say was attempting to dock in the Dominican Republic and use the country as a bridge to transport drugs to the United States. "This is the first time in history that the United States and the Dominican Republic carry out a joint operation against narco terrorism in the Caribbean," the directorate said.

In August, the United States dispatched eight warships and a submarine to the southern Caribbean as part of an anti-narcotics mission. White House officials say the flotilla has destroyed three speedboats carrying drugs in separate strikes and that more than a dozen people have died aboard the vessels.

Human-rights groups have criticized the strikes as extrajudicial killings, and on Friday two Democratic senators introduced a resolution in Congress to block the administration from carrying out further strikes.

The operation comes as part of a regional push that the White House has tied to preventing cocaine shipments to the United States. Officials note that at least two of the boats sunk in related strikes originated in Venezuela, whose president, Nicolás Maduro, denies the charges and has described the U.S. naval buildup in the Caribbean as an attack on his country.