Over $41 million in cocaine found in motor boat by Colombia navy

After intercepting a "suspicious" motor boat going to Central America, the Colombian navy recovered nearly one ton of cocaine worth tens of millions of dollars, police said Thursday.

The "go fast" boat was 110 miles off Nicaragua's coast in the Providencia Archipelago, the country's only Central American territory. A Maritime Task Group monitored the vessel and intercepted it after a long pursuit, the Colombian navy said in a news release.

Inside the five-person Colombian boat, investigators found 48 parcels and 40 loose rectangular containers with the "suspicious substance". When the boat and crew were transferred to San Andrés Coast Guard Station, a preliminary identification revealed cocaine, the navy claimed.

Tests showed the seized cocaine weighed 1,235 kilos, or 1.36 tons. The substance would be worth "more than $41,619,000 in the international illegal market," authorities added.

Forbes reports that "go fast" boats are used to deliver the drugs and can be altered to avoid detection. The boats have been utilized since the 1980s and usually land in Mexico, where drugs enter the US.