U.S. authorities have seized 305.5 metric tons (approximately 673,512 pounds) of cocaine between Oct. 1, 2025, and June 18, apprehending 518 individuals, according to a recent operational update from an interagency task force.
The seizure of cocaine supplies has a “massive impact in the fight against transnational crime,” denying narcoterrorists around $7.2 billion in revenues, the Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-S) said in a June 24 post on X.
Based in Key West, Florida, JIATF-S monitors and facilitates the interception of drug traffickers in the air and maritime domains, working with 13 domestic and 20 international partners.
“This unified joint operation facilitates critical interdictions and apprehensions—choking off the flow of illegal drugs and actively degrading and dismantling Transnational Criminal Organizations,” the post said.
The operation, launched in August last year, is the USCG’s accelerated counter-drug operation in the Eastern Pacific, through which significant amounts of illicit drugs flow into the United States from Central and South America.
Last month, the Trump administration’s drug czar, Sara Carter, released the 2026 National Drug Control Strategy, in which Carter said that the United States will “take the fight to the enemy with a relentless offense” regarding its battle against drug cartels.
“The era of containment has failed. This Strategy serves as our order of battle to hunt the cartels in their safe havens, dismantle their labs, seize their assets, and sever their supply lines,” Carter said.
“Using every instrument of American power, we will break the backs of the Transnational Criminal Organizations—especially those designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations—that profit from killing our citizens.”
Drug Vessel Strikes
This week, a New York district court heard arguments in a case related to the Trump administration’s military strikes on drug vessels in the Caribbean Sea, according to a June 24 statement from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).U.S. military forces have carried out several strikes against drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific since last year.
The lawsuit is seeking an immediate release of an opinion issued by the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). The opinion is being used by the Trump administration to “justify and govern its illegal campaign of lethal strikes on civilian boats in international waters,” ACLU said.
At the hearing, ACLU and other groups argued that the administration cannot keep the legal justification of strikes secret while continuously referencing it in public.
Jeffrey Stein, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, alleged that the Trump administration “has murdered over 210 civilians with no sound legal or moral basis.”
“At a minimum, the administration must disclose to the American people why it thinks this killing spree is lawful,” Stein said.
According to a May 1 preliminary statement filed in court by the administration, the plaintiffs had requested access to the OLC opinion in October last year under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
This memorandum, according to the administration, includes highly sensitive classified information, including details that would reveal intelligence sources, methods, and operations.
“This information is protected from release by FOIA’s exemption 1 and, where it would reveal intelligence sources and methods, exemption 3 under the National Security Act,” the statement said.
The memo is also protected by other rules linked to FOIA’s exemption, including the presidential communications privilege, since the document was “created at the request of the President’s direct advisors for use in advising him concerning a presidential decision whether to take a military action.”
Meanwhile, the United Nations said in a June 26 post on X that one in 16 individuals worldwide use drugs, “more than at any point in history.” The global cocaine market has reached “record levels,” with worldwide production jumping 370 percent between 2014 and 2024.
The data comes from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) World Drug Report 2026, which was released on Friday, according to a June 26 statement from the UNODC.
An estimated 331 million individuals, or 6.2 percent of the total population aged 15-64, used a drug in 2024, the statement said. Cannabis was the most widely used drug, with 256 million users, followed by opioids, amphetamines, cocaine, and ecstasy.
