A boat carrying a cocaine shipment was intercepted before dawn on Wednesday south of the municipality of Guayanilla, and three Venezuelan nationals were detained. Jeffrey Quiñones, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), told El Nuevo Día that 594 kilos of cocaine were seized. The vessel was stopped during a patrol by the maritime unit of CBP’s Ponce office.
Earlier, Puerto Rico Police superintendent Joseph González confirmed the federal operation on El Nuevo Día’s program "Lo de Hoy." "I received information about a boat that was seized for now (preliminary information points to) more than 2,000 kilos of cocaine in the Ponce area," González said. CBP, however, confirmed the load was 594 kilos, not 2,000.
"The information is very preliminary," González added. So far this year, the Puerto Rico Police have seized 11,417 kilos of cocaine. The shipment seized Wednesday morning was taken by the Caribbean Air Marine Branch of the Border Patrol.