The deadly U.S. military strikes against ships carrying drugs in international waters mark a leap forward and an aggressive escalation in U.S. counternarcotics policy, in which drug trafficking is treated as a national security threat equivalent to terrorism.
THE initial strikeswhich began in early September, targeted ships that had left the Caribbean coasts of Venezuela and Colombia. The operation has since expanded to the Eastern Pacific.
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has claimed the targeted boats were linked to criminal groups it has designated as foreign terrorist organizations, but has provided no solid evidence to support the claims. U.S. lawmakers, foreign officials and independent experts have raised questions about the legality and effectiveness of the strikes, while the administration has insisted they have a sound legal and strategic basis.
Officials, including Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have also made statements that contradict InSight Crime's research. They linked the first ship hit by U.S. missiles on September 2 to the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, but thorough investigation into the gang found no evidence that it was a transnational drug trafficking network. President Trump and others have also linked the missile strike to the deadly opioid crisis in the United States and said some of the boats hit were carrying fentanyl. But our research shows that fentanyl is almost exclusively produced in Mexico, not South America.
SEE ALSO: US drone attack highlights Sucre's role in Venezuela's cocaine corridor
To better understand this important evolution in tactics to combat organized crime, we have created this timeline of how the strikes unfolded.
Most of the information used to explain the strikes was provided by the U.S. government and, in many cases, could not be corroborated.
Here is a timeline of how the strikes unfolded.
17 strikes
70 killed
*This figure shows the total number of people killed, but not the total number of people on board each ship.
September 2, 2025
The US military launched its first strike, targeting a small boat in the eastern Caribbean that had left the Venezuelan state of Sugar. Trump announced that the strike killed 11 people who he said were members of the Tren de Aragua, one of the groups designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
September 15, 2025
Asset announcement a second strike, which he said killed three individuals he called “narcoterrorists from Venezuela.” Colombian President Gustavo Petro later claimed that one of those killed, Colombian citizen Alejandro Carranza, was a fishermanalthough Colombian media reported that he was arrested in 2016 for his involvement in a weapons theft from a police warehouse.
September 16, 2025
Trump claimed there was an additional strike that had not been previously reported, tell the journalists“We actually overturned three boats, not two. But you saw two,” without providing further details. It is unclear whether he was referring to another strike that would be announced later.
September 19, 2025
Asset announcement a strike killed three people on board a boat using “a passage known for drug trafficking”. The strike reportedly took place about 80 nautical miles south of Beata Island in the Dominican Republic, and authorities there later reported confirmed that they had seized approximately a ton of cocaine that was on board the ship.
SEE ALSO: Behind the curtain: How Trump's spat with Colombia could impact counter-drug operations
October 3, 2025
Hegseth announcement a strike killed four people “in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela.” He claimed the ship was “transporting significant quantities of narcotics to America” but provided no further details on the intelligence behind that assessment.
October 14, 2025
American forces spear a strike on a boat “just off the coast of Venezuela,” which Trump said was “confirmed” as carrying drugs, killing six people.
October 16, 2025
The American army destroyed a semi-submersible vessel, known as a “narco sub”, for the first time during the operation. It was also the first strike that left survivors. Two individuals were killed, but an Ecuadorian and a Colombian survived. Ecuadorian Andrés Fernando Tufiño was released after being returned to his home country, where authorities refused to press charges against him. The other survivor, Jeison Obando Pérez, arrived in Colombia with serious medical treatment and could face prosecution for drug crimes.
Trump claimed that U.S. intelligence confirmed that the ship was “loaded primarily with fentanyl” and that “at least 25,000 Americans would die” if it reached its destination. But this claim is implausible, since the strike took place in the Caribbean, not along an established fentanyl trafficking route.
October 17, 2025
The US military killed three people aboard a boat that Hegseth claimed in a tweet he was “affiliated” with the Colombian guerrilla group the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN), another organization that the United States has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Hegseth compared drug trafficking organizations to the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, a comparison he will continue to make after subsequent strikes, saying: “The U.S. military will treat these organizations like the terrorists they are: they will be hunted down and killed.”
October 21, 2025
United States spear its first strike in the Eastern Pacific, killing two people, marking an expansion of the operation's geographic reach.
October 22, 2025
The American army killed three in the second strike in the Eastern Pacific in two days.
October 24, 2025
Hegseth announcement the first nighttime strike of the operation, which targeted what it claimed was “a vessel operated by Tren de Aragua”. Six died in the strike.
October 27, 2025
In the deadliest day since the start of the deployment, American forces killed 15 in strikes against four ships in the Eastern Pacific. Mexican search and rescue authorities attempted to find one person who initially survived the strike. However, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum later said the search had failed and denounced the way the United States was carrying out the strikes.
October 29, 2025
Hegseth announcement that a strike in the eastern Pacific killed four people aboard a ship that he said “like all the others, was known by our intelligence services to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling.”
November 1, 2025
Three people were killed when the US military fired a missile at a boat in the Caribbean. Hegseth did not provide further details on its origin but said American intelligence services had identified the ship as carrying a drug cargo.
November 4, 2025
The American army killed two people aboard a ship in the Pacific, which Hegseth said was “transiting a known drug trafficking route and transporting narcotics,” without providing further evidence.
November 6, 2025
Three people were killed a new attack in the Caribbean. Hegseth announced that the ship was operated by a terrorist organization, without specifying which one.
