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Traffickers also appear to have turned their attention to Costa Rica, which recorded an unprecedented stint of five narco subs beached on the country’s southern coast between 2017 and 2019, an early indicator of the country’s rising prominence as a major cocaine transhipment center for criminal organizations in the region.
Similarly, in the Atlantic, narco subs appear to be destined for Central America and southern Mexico. The Honduran drug trafficking clan Montes Bobadilla received drug shipments from Colombia onboard narco subs, according to US court documents. Members of the group remain at large, and the 2024 discovery of long channels cut from the Honduran Caribbean coast to a property linked to the clan suggests that the group has continued to receive large maritime drug shipments.
“The primary routes originate in source countries of South America and transit through international waters, where the majority of LPV traffic is interdicted,” the JIATF spokesperson told InSight Crime, who added that LPVs attempting to reach the United States remain uncommon.
Seizures of transoceanic narco subs remain rare, though they have increased in frequency. Since the first confirmed case of a narco sub traversing the Atlantic in 2019, a total of twelve vessels have been caught attempting to reach European and Australian coasts. Eight of the seizures were in 2024 and 2025.
While law enforcement frequently frames such seizures as “victories” against drug traffickers, the demonstrated tendency and willingness of criminal groups to load multi-ton loads of cocaine onto these vessels is more a signal that the method remains highly successful despite the interdictions.
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