GUATEMALA CITY, (Reuters) – The United States military is ramping up anti-drug trafficking efforts in Guatemalan and Honduran waters to keep up with shifting smuggling routes, a top U.S. military official told Reuters yesterday.
Gen. Douglas Fraser, head of the U.S. military’s Southern Command, said that the coasts along the two Central American countries are top transit spots for South American cocaine destined for the United States.
“Key arrival points in Central America are the northeast coast of Honduras and then the Pacific coast of Guatemala,” Fraser said. “We changed our strategy to be more persistent … to see if we could have a bigger impact on trafficking organizations.”
U.S. Southern Command, based in Doral, Florida, and responsible for coordinating military operations in Latin American and the Caribbean, sent 171 Marines and four helicopters to Guatemala this month as part of Operation Martillo. The operation is part of a strategy to boost seizures in Central American waters, where small, fast b oats and submarines transport about 500 tons of cocaine to the United States annually.
