Record Cocaine Seizure of 1 Million Pounds Announced by U.S. Task Force

Key West, Fla. — A multi-agency task force led by U.S. Southern Command has seized a record 1 million pounds of cocaine during fiscal year 2025, representing 378 million lethal doses — enough to kill every American twice over, officials announced Monday.

The Joint Inter-Agency Task Force – South (JIATF-S), which includes the U.S. Coast Guard and partners from other nations, operates across 42 million square miles from the Eastern Pacific to the Western Atlantic, targeting drug trafficking in the transit zone between South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The haul, equivalent to filling 42 dump trucks, has denied cartels and narco-terrorists $11.34 billion in revenue and removed the drugs from U.S. streets, JIATF-S confirmed.

"By disrupting the flow of these deadly drugs, JIATF-S is saving lives and protecting our homeland," the agency stated. The seizure surpasses all previous records and excludes additional operations against Venezuelan narco-terrorists.

The Trump administration has ramped up counter-narcotics efforts in the region, including designating the Tren de Aragua and Sinaloa Cartel as foreign terrorist organizations in February. The Justice Department offered a $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, accused of leading the Cartel of the Suns, a drug-trafficking network involving government and military officials.

Prosecutors allege Maduro conspired with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia to ship multi-ton cocaine loads and provide military-grade weapons. In August, Trump approved deploying U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers to bolster operations in the Caribbean.

Maduro denounced the move as "an extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral and absolutely criminal and bloody threat" and accused Trump of plotting his overthrow.