MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Royal Navy 60 million dollar drugs bust waging war in Latin American traffickers.

The Royal Navy has struck another blow against Latin American drugs runners in a dramatic encounter in the Caribbean, seizing a cocaine shipment with an estimated street value of 40-million pounds (nearly 60-million dollars).

A Royal Navy helicopter launched from the frigate HMS Coventry detected and chased four smugglers in a high-powered speedboat through Caribbean cays and mangrove swamps (on September 3rd). They were forced to beach the boat in mangroves at Hick Bay to escape, abandoning around a tonne of cocaine.

Co-operating with the Belize authorities and the British High Commission on anti-drug operations, HMS Coventry's Lynx helicopter spotted the speedboat near Belize, heading towards the coast of Mexico at speeds of up to 37 knots. Though the boat was powered by three powerful outboard engines, HMS Coventry closed the gasp as the smugglers slowed down to re-fuel from a drum which was then thrown overboard.

Returning to the frigate to re-fuel, the helicopter resumed the chase after sunset, keeping the smugglers' boat under surveillance with infra-red detection equipment and radar.

The helicopter guided two Belize police patrol boats to the abandoned boat, to confiscate over 1000 kilograms of cocaine and mount a search for the four fugitives.HMS Coventry, successor to the guided missile destroyer of the same name sunk by Argentine bombing in the 1982 Falklands war, arrived in the Caribbean at the end of July, under the command of Captain Philip Jones RN, to take over from her sister ship, HMS Sheffield (also named after a warship sunk in the Falklands conflict by an exocet missile).

The Royal Navy deploys a warship on regular patrol in the Caribbean area of the North Atlantic, with three main tasks: anti- drugs smuggling; emergency help in case of natural disaster such as hurricanes and volcanoes; and maintaining British interests in the region.

Another Royal Navy warship, currently the destroyer HMS Edinburgh, pursues a similar role patrolling the South Atlantic, including protection of the Falkland Islands.

A Royal Navy spokesman told Mercopress the Coventry's action is one of the biggest single drug seizures by the Royal N