The Mexican Navy secured 2 tons of cocaine floating in the eastern Pacific Ocean in March 2026, the latest in a string of seizures by the maritime defense force. Acting on intelligence, two patrol vessels located 80 waterproof packages bobbing in ocean currents about 322 kilometers southeast of Acapulco on March 9, according to Border Report, a U.S. news site focused on the Mexico-United States border region. Mexican Navy Sailors recovered the packages after support aircraft helped locate the floating drugs, according to the Secretariat of the Navy. No arrests were made.
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson praised the seizure, posting on the social-media platform X that the operation reflected the success of heightened Mexico-U.S. cooperation. “I commend (Mexico) for the seizure of 2 tons of cocaine off the coast of Guerrero (state). Actions like these add to the more than 60 tons of drugs already seized at sea by Mexican authorities,” Johnson said, according to Border Report. “These efforts help protect the health and security of our two nations and show what we can achieve when we cooperate and share information.”
The March 9 seizure was the latest in a flurry of counternarcotic maritime operations that have netted at least 12 tons of cocaine. In February, the Mexican Navy captured a semisubmersible “narco sub” carrying 4 tons of cocaine about 402 kilometers south of the port of Manzanillo. In that operation, Sailors arrested three people with the support of four aircraft and multiple patrol boats. “In the last week, maritime operations have made it possible to seize nearly 10 tons of this drug,” Mexico Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection Omar García Harfuch said February 19 in a post on X. “This represents a direct and multimillion-dollar blow to the financial structures of organized crime, by preventing millions of doses from reaching the streets and protecting the safety of Mexican families.”
Cocaine seizures represent just a fraction of the counternarcotics efforts in 2026. So far this year, the Mexican Navy has destroyed almost 4 tons of methamphetamines and more than 70 tons of chemical precursors. Sailors and Marines have assisted in the arrest of 1,872 suspected offenders, according to a March 1 news release from the Secretariat of the Navy. “These actions are part of the maritime, aerial, and land surveillance operations carried out by the Mexican Navy in coordination with authorities at all three levels of government to deter criminal activity, in order to guarantee and maintain the rule of law in our country; as well as to provide support to the population that requires it, with the sole mission of serving Mexico,” the release stated.