Record amount of cocaine found hidden in South American jungle weeks after “narco sub” discovered in area

Authorities in the South American country of Guyana said Sunday they have seized more than 8,000 pounds of cocaine found in a lush jungle near the border with Venezuela, officials said, just weeks after a “narco sub” was found in the area.

The land seizure is considered the biggest in recent history, with Security Minister Robeson Benn telling reporters he estimates the drugs are worth at least $200 million.

The drugs were found in earthen pits in Guyana’s northwest region, officials said.

They were located near a clandestine airstrip for shipment to Europe, a customs official said. James Singh, the head of the anti-narcotics unit of Guyana’s customs agency, said traffickers dug holes in the ground to hide the cocaine, and then covered them with wooden planks.

Police arrested one suspect and said they are looking for two more who fled the scene.

Guyana’s police and military, along with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, were involved in the operation.

“We are happy that we have the DEA with us sharing information and intelligence,” Benn said. “Guyana is a victim of this … illegal activity. We don’t produce cocaine; we don’t transit it.”

The drugs were seized in an area where police have found improvised submersible vessels — dubbed “narco subs” — hidden in the jungle in recent months. Officials said it’s unclear if any of those vessels were actually used but said they would step up monitoring in that region.

Just weeks ago, Interpol said a homemade “narco sub” intercepted in a Guyana jungle was capable of transporting as much as 3 tons of cocaine at a time, and warned that traffickers in the region can steer semisubmersibles through the rivers of South America before crossing the Atlantic Ocean and eventually arriving in Western Europe. 

That semisubmersible vessel was seized along with 615 tons of illegal drugs and 505 tons of precursor chemicals worth $1.6 billion, as well as 65 stolen cars, in 31 different nations, Interpol said.

Semi-submersibles, which cannot go fully underwater, are popular among international drug traffickers as they can often elude detection by authorities. The vessels are sometimes seized in Colombian waters while heading to the United States, Central America and Europe.  

Earlier this summer, the Colombian Navy said it seized two of the vehicles off the country’s Pacific coast that together contained almost 5 tons of cocaine and were routing toward Central America. Colombian authorities said at the time that officers had intercepted 13 of the subs so far in 2024 after intercepting 20 of the semisubmersibles in 2023.

AFP contributed to this report.