The drug boat destroyed by a U.S. air strike announced on Friday by President Donald Trump was carrying about 1,000 kilograms, or about 2,200 pounds, of suspected cocaine, Dominican Republic officials confirmed.
The Dominican National Directorate for Drug Control and the Navy of the Dominican Republic seized 377 packages of cocaine from the “speedboat of narcoterrorists” targeted in the strike, they said in a joint announcement.
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The Dominican officials worked with U.S. Southcom forces to detect the drug speedboat, which intelligence officials suspected was headed for a stop in the Dominican Republic before continuing to the United States, they said in the announcement.
“It is noteworthy that this is the first time in history that the Dominican Republic and the United States have carried out a joint operation against narcoterrorism in the Caribbean region,” the National Directorate for Drug Control said in a post on X Sunday.
The strike, which occurred about 80 miles south of Isla Beata off the southern edge of the Dominican Republic, was the third announced U.S. strike in a series of defense efforts to ward off drug traffickers. The Trump administration said the first strike on Sept. 2 killed members of the Venezuelan-based Tren De Aragua gang and the second strike also hit a boat of alleged Venezuelan origin.
Trump posted a video of the third U.S. strike to Truth Social Friday. He said he authorized Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to carry out the attack.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics, and was transiting along a known narcotrafficking passage enroute to poison Americans. The strike killed 3 male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel, which was in international waters. No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike,” Trump said in the Truth Social post.
Dominican officials said after the U.S. military fired the strike, the Dominican Navy and the National Directorate for Drug Control conducted a search operation to find the remaining substances. It was during this operation that they located the 377 packages of cocaine, 60 of which were completely destroyed in the strike, the officials said.
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In August, the Pentagon deployed thousands of troops and several Naval warships off the coast of Latin America to escalate its efforts to fight the influence of drug cartels.
The repeated air strikes have received pushback from Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Tim Kaine (D-VA), who have sponsored a war powers resolution to curb Trump’s ability to strike on suspected designated foreign terrorist organizations.