The Secretariat of the Navy of Mexico (Semar) achieved the largest cocaine seizure of the year. The operation took place west of Clarion Island, about 700 kilometers from mainland Mexico and outside the country's Exclusive Economic Zone. According to Semar, in an operation carried out in coordination with the United States Coast Guard, a ship transporting 188 large bales of cocaine was intercepted, with an estimated cargo of several tons of the psychotropic substance. To know the final result of this seizure, the Navy will have to wait for its weighing by the Attorney General's Office (FGR) in a procedure that must be carried out on land. In the action, five people were detained and will be made available to the FGR to define their legal situation and initiate the corresponding investigation file. The operation was carried out with units from the Mexican Navy, the Coast Guard (USCG), and the Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-South) of the United States of America, derived from bilateral cooperation to combat illicit activities in the maritime sphere. Semar added that this seizure is part of the maritime surveillance operations that the Mexican Navy carries out through the exchange of information, in order to "deter criminal action." The 188 bales of cocaine wrapped in plastic "represent a significant impact on the finances" of the criminal group responsible, which also lost the vessel it was using to transport the drug, the Navy noted. Where is Clarion Island? The seizure of the drug was made beyond Mexico's Exclusive Economic Zone, west of Clarion Island, the second largest and most western island of the Revillagigedo Islands, which belong to Mexico and administratively depend on the state of Colima. Clarion Island is more than 700 kilometers from Manzanillo, Colima, and 314 km west of Socorro Island, the largest of the Revillagigedo Islands and the only one that has a naval base. Clarion Island has an extension of 180 square meters and has been considered a protected natural area since 1994, so it is completely uninhabited.
