Colombian authorities have made their largest cocaine bust in a decade, confiscating 14 tonnes at its foremost Pacific port, as President Gustavo Petro continues to combat again in opposition to claims from the administration of United States President Donald Trump of his complicity within the drug commerce.
The seizure on the earth’s largest cocaine-producing nation got here as Bolivia introduced the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will likely be invited again into the nation, 17 years after being expelled, to bolster the brand new conservative authorities’s anti-cocaine efforts.
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Colombia’s Ministry of Defence hailed the “historic blow” to drug traffickers on Friday, because it introduced it had seized dozens of 50-kilogramme (110-pound) sacks of cocaine inside a warehouse within the southwestern port of Buenaventura, a strategic departure level for Colombian cocaine.
“The drug was camouflaged beneath the strategy of being combined with plaster,” it mentioned, including that the container was headed for the Netherlands.
“With this seizure, we prevented the circulation of 35 million doses of cocaine and impacted the funds of these constructions by greater than $388.9m.”
Petro confirmed the seizure in a put up on X, calling it the biggest by the Colombian police “within the final decade” as he posted a video of officers and canines raiding the warehouse within the Port of Buenaventura.
He added that the operation was carried out “and not using a single demise”.
¡ALERTA!
La incautación más grande de la Policía de Colombia en la última década.
Son 14 toneladas de cocaína incautadas sin un solo muerto en el Puerto de Buenaventura. pic.twitter.com/KlCPPfRbWa
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) November 21, 2025
Translation: ALERT! The biggest seizure by the Colombian Police within the final decade. It’s 14 tonnes of cocaine seized and not using a single demise within the Port of Buenaventura.
Strain from Washington
The seizure comes because the Trump administration has ramped up stress on Bogota over latest months, branding its anti-drug insurance policies inadequate and threatening to take away Colombia from its record of allies in its struggle on medication.
In October, the US Division of the Treasury sanctioned President Petro, his spouse Veronica del Socorro Alcocer Garcia, his son Nicolas Fernando Petro Burgos, and Colombian Inside Minister Armando Alberto Benedetti over their alleged involvement within the world drug commerce.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent mentioned Petro had “allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to cease this exercise”.
“Since President Gustavo Petro got here to energy, cocaine manufacturing in Colombia has exploded to the very best price in many years, flooding america and poisoning People,” Bessent mentioned.
On Monday, Petro ordered Colombia’s Monetary Data and Evaluation Unit to publicly launch his financial institution data in an effort to display he has no ties to drug trafficking.
“Don’t you discover it alarming that my financial institution accounts and transactions contradict President Trump’s evaluation of a president democratically elected by Colombians?” Petro wrote on X.
Petro has been vital of Trump’s anti-drug technique since returning to workplace, condemning his administration’s repeated bombing of suspected trafficking boats within the Caribbean and jap Pacific Ocean since September as “extrajudicial executions”.
The Trump administration has forged its army actions – together with a latest dramatic improve of warships stationed within the area – as an effort to counter illicit drug flows.
Venezuela has decried it as a pretext to power President Nicolas Maduro from energy, as fears develop in Caracas that Trump is readying troops for imminent army motion in opposition to the South American nation.
Bolivia’s conservative shift
As Colombia and Venezuela look to be on a collision course with Washington, US ties with Bolivia are displaying indicators of enchancment because the South American nation begins a new era of conservative governance after twenty years of leftist rule.
Bolivia’s brand-new narcotics tsar, Ernesto Justiniano, advised the AFP information company on Friday that the DEA, expelled by socialist former president Evo Morales in 2008, will likely be invited to return to the nation.
Justiniano – a part of the brand new administration of President Rodrigo Paz, a pro-business conservative who took workplace on November 8 – mentioned “there’s a political dedication” for the company to return to Bolivia, the place he mentioned cocaine manufacturing had spiralled uncontrolled.
“We’ll now not be an remoted nation, a rustic that’s self-absorbed and acts solely out of political necessity,” Justiniano mentioned.
“Worldwide cooperation is key” to preventing the drug commerce, he added.
Paz, the chief of the centre-right Christian Democratic Celebration, is aiming for a pointy political, financial, social and diplomatic shift away from the insurance policies of Bolivia’s socialist leaders.
