TEGUCIGALPA, (PNA/Xinhua) — The Honduran Navy seized at least 500 kg of cocaine and arrested two people suspected of shipping the drug by boat through Caribbean waters, Defense Minister Marlon Pascua said Tuesday.
Pascua said the shipment was headed to northern Bay Islands department, for later transport to the United States.
The two suspects were from the department of Islas de la Bahia in the Honduran Caribbean, added the minister.
“It was an intense search operation that had a good outcome,” said Pascua, adding that the anti-narcotics operation began last Thursday, and under close surveillance, the vessel was detected in Vivorillos in eastern department of Gracias a Dios, a region of Honduras known as La Mosquitia.
Local press reported the drugs had been stashed in the middle of a pile of discarded wood and later unloaded from the twin-engine boat. A judge and a public prosecutor were dispatched to the site to verify the size of the seizure and the drug’s grade of purity.
The head of the Armed Forces, Rene Osorio, said the seizure was made after the U.S. Coast Guard alerted the Honduran Navy, who sent a team to investigate and made the find.
More than 70 percent of the cocaine shipped to Mexico from South America, and later sent to the United States, passes through Honduras, according to official sources.