El Salvador’s naval forces seized nearly a ton of cocaine in Pacific waters and arrested three Ecuadorians and three Mexicans, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele reported on Twitter on Saturday.

The president pointed out that the seizure, worth $25 million, was made 972 kilometers from the Salvadoran coast and that it was done in a boat.

Bukele added that “this (is) the furthest naval operation against drug trafficking from the Salvadoran coast that our country has conducted.”

“On board the drug smuggling boat were 6 crew members, 3 of them with Ecuadorian nationality and 3 of them with Mexican nationality,” he said.

The 2020 report from the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) indicates that the drug trade in Central America and the Caribbean is contributing to an increase in the region’s already very high level of violence due to competition between criminal groups.

The INCB urges that “local gangs and international criminal groups” continue to exploit the Central American and Caribbean region “as a transit area and transshipment route for drugs from South America destined for consumer markets in the Americas.” Northern and Europe.