When the United States military launched an airstrike on a speedboat as it approached the southern shore of the Dominican Republic last month, killing three people on board, Dominican authorities said more than 375 packages of cocaine went flying into the Caribbean Sea.
Dozens of them had red packaging with a brand name clearly labeled in black and white capital letters, MEN, according to photos distributed by the Dominican anti-narcotics agency.
The 1,000 kilos of cocaine recovered from the wreckage were added to the nearly 19,000 kilos of drugs the Dominican Republic’s anti-narcotics agency had already captured since January, in what had been a record-setting year of narcotics seizures at sea before U.S. warships moved into the region.
The Trump administration, claiming to battle drug-trafficking cartels it labels terrorists, has been destroying speedboats boats in the Caribbean, shining a fresh light on a decades-old industry responsible for bringing tons of cocaine into the United States each year.
Long known as a popular corridor for moving people, drugs and guns, the Caribbean is no longer the dominant route it was in the 1980s, when television shows like “Miami Vice’’ captured the way Colombian drug cartels shipped and flew illicit products to South Florida.
But as enforcement strategies changed throughout the years, the region has periodically re-emerged as a popular channel for moving illicit goods, increasingly to Europe, where the demand for cocaine, and the price, is higher.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The post Drug Smugglers Change Supply Routes to Evade U.S. Warships appeared first on New York Times.
