Seized cocaine Mexico-bound, U.S. says

Los Angeles Times
By Chris Kraul
March 20, 2007

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - Twenty tons of cocaine seized off the Pacific coast of Panama over the weekend were believed headed to a Mexican port for delivery to the notorious Sinaloa cartel, U.S. officials said Tuesday. The seizure Sunday of drugs valued at more than $275 million wholesale was described by the officials as the largest recorded maritime cocaine bust.

The drugs were believed to have been purchased by Ismael Zambada, a suspected leader of Mexico's so-called Sinaloa cartel, officials said. The cache was seized aboard a 300-foot Panamanian-flagged freighter destined for an unspecified port in Mexico. The drugs had been loaded onto the ship off Colombia's northwest Pacific coast. The ship was steaming northwest about 15 miles off the Panamanian island of Coiba when it was intercepted by units of the U.S. Coast Guard, Panamanian police and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Fourteen crew members, 11 of them Mexican and the others Panamanian, were arrested.