Dominican Republic Seizes Cocaine Recovered From U.S.-Destroyed Speedboat
Authorities say 377 packages were recovered from a vessel destroyed by the U.S. Navy amid a Caribbean anti-narcotics mission, marking a rare joint operation between Washington and Santo Domingo.
The Dominican Republic said Sunday it recovered 377 packages of cocaine from a speedboat that was destroyed recently by the U.S. Navy, as the Trump administration carries out a controversial anti-narcotics mission in the southern Caribbean.
In a press briefing, the National Directorate for Drug Control said the boat had been carrying about 1,000 kilograms of cocaine and was destroyed roughly 80 nautical miles south of Isla Beata, a Dominican island. Dominican Republic Navy authorities said they and U.S. forces located the vessel as it sought to dock and use the Dominican Republic as a transit point to move drugs toward the United States. This operation, Dominican officials said, represented the first time the United States and the Dominican Republic conducted a joint operation against narco-terrorism in the Caribbean.
In August, the United States dispatched eight warships and a submarine to the southern Caribbean, part of a mission the White House has described as a broad effort to disrupt drug trafficking. The administration has said three narcoterrorists were killed in separate strikes targeting international drug traffickers. The White House says the flotilla has destroyed three speedboats carrying drugs so far in distinct strikes that have killed more than a dozen people aboard those vessels. Human rights groups, however, have raised concerns that the strikes amount to extrajudicial killings, and on Friday two Democratic senators introduced a resolution in Congress that would block future strikes.
The White House and U.S. officials have said at least two of the vessels involved in those strikes departed Venezuela, a point cited by White House aides who describe Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as the head of a drug-trafficking network known as the Cartel of the Suns. Maduro has denied the charges and characterized the U.S. naval buildup in the Caribbean as an attack on his government.
The Dominican Navy said the operation was carried out in cooperation with U.S. authorities and emphasized that it could signal a new, collaborative approach to disrupt narcotics trafficking in the Caribbean region. The July–September window has featured heightened naval activity as Washington seeks to deter drug shipments en route to North America while the Caribbean nations involved weigh the implications of intensified security coordination. The incident underscores the evolving role Caribbean partners may play in U.S.-led anti-narcotics efforts and the political sensitivity surrounding foreign military activity in the region.
Venezuela remains a focal point of the broader dispute over narcotics trafficking in the region. U.S. officials have asserted that some shipments originate from Venezuela, while Maduro’s government has rejected the characterization and accused Washington of pressuring Caribbean and South American allies. The latest Dominican report adds to the complex set of claims and counterclaims shaping international response to the Caribbean narcotics crisis, including diplomatic debates over how best to respond to trafficking networks that span national borders and often involve multiple state and nonstate actors.
The operation also raises questions about the long-term approach to narcotics interdiction in the Caribbean, where authorities say cooperation between nations will be essential to disrupting routes used to move cocaine to North America. Officials cautioned that while this discovery is a tangible wallet of seized narcotics, it is only one element of a broader, ongoing effort to stem trafficking networks that authorities say have deep regional roots and extensive logistical links.