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Navy ship seized £290.66m of cocaine and narcotics

The HMS 'Trent' seized £290.66m of cocaine and narcotics in two huge blows to drug runners in the Caribbean. British sailors, Royal Marines and a US Coast Guard team on the vessel intercepted a suspected smuggling speedboat south of the US Virgin Islands. The smugglers began jettisoning their illegal cargo as they fled towards land, but the 'Trent', her fast sea boats and an American patrol aircraft gave chase – eventually recovering 94 bales of class-a narcotics, weighing 2,757 kg and worth £220.56m. This was the vessel's second drugs bust in the space of three weeks, having seized £70.1m of cocaine in a separate operation in Jan 2024, pouncing as darkness fell as smugglers tried to escape. Royal Marines coxswains and the USCG boarding team closed in, took control of the vessel and detained four crew members. At dayligt, the crew of the 'Trent' scoured the ocean for the abandoned cargo, eventually retrieving 29 bales of cocaine weighing in at 876kg after an extensive ten-hour search across 24 square miles. The 'TrentÄ then more than tripled her total seized with the second bust, again in a coordinated operation with the USCG and a US Maritime Patrol Aircraft.The ship’s sea boats – crewed by sailors, USCG personnel and Royal Marines – worked with the aircraft to pursue the speedboat The traffickers dumped 20 bales of the narcotics – later recovered by HMS 'Trent' – before they ran aground and were detained by authorities on the US Virgin Islands, where a further 74 bales were seized. In all, the 94 bales of narcotics weighed in at 2,757kg and worth £220.56m.