CBP Agent, Suspected Smuggler Killed Off Puerto Rico Coast

CBP Agent, Suspected Smuggler Killed Off Puerto Rico Coast
Federal agents wait for news of their injured colleagues outside the Rio Piedras Medical Center in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Nov. 17, 2022. Courtesy of Carlos Giusti/GFR Media via AP
The Associated Press
Updated:
0:00

WASHINGTON—A U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent and a suspected smuggler died during a shootout Thursday off the Puerto Rico coast, authorities said. Two other U.S. officers were injured.

CBP’s Air and Marine Operations unit was on routine patrol around 8 a.m. Thursday when the shots were fired about 12 miles (19 kilometers) off the coast from Cabo Rojo, a major drug smuggling corridor for cocaine coming out of South America known as the Mona Passage, the agency said. It lies between Puerto Rico’s western coastline and the Dominican Republic.