US authorities seize $180 million Colombian cocaine shipment
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US authorities confiscated a $180 million shipment of cocaine from Colombian drug traffickers aboard a boat on the Pacific Ocean bound for the United States, the Colombian attorney general's office said on Saturday.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) found 5.28 tonnes of the drug aboard the vessel, captured in international waters off Central America, said Alexandra Ladino, director of the attorney general's specialized police force, which cooperated with the DEA on the operation.
The Panamanian-flagged boat had earlier departed the Colombian port city of Buenaventura, Ladino said. The drugs belonged to a Colombian trafficking group, which she said would not be named for fear of compromising further investigations.
Fourteen crew members, from Colombia and other Latin American countries, were detained and will be processed in the United States, Ladino told reporters.
