The Guatemalan coast guard has made a record seizure of nearly four tons of cocaine being transported by ship, the military said Tuesday.
A patrol spotted the vessel at sea Monday, leading it to speed up in a getaway bid. The boat was, however, stranded on a Caribbean beach, where its crew fled.
On board the ship, officers found 157 bags containing a total of 3,905 one-kilogram packets of cocaine, army spokeswoman Ann Marie Argueta told reporters.
The Guatemalan military has seized 11 metric tons (12.1 US tons) of cocaine so far this year, a sharp uptick from the three metric tons seized in 2023, according to official data.
Washington says about 90 percent of the cocaine that enters the United States comes via Mexico or Central America.
Colombia, the world's biggest source of cocaine, set a new record last year with about 2,600 tons of the drug produced, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
These were the highest numbers since the UN started monitoring the trade in 2001.