The deadly US military strikes against alleged drug-carrying vessels in international waters mark a quantum leap and an aggressive escalation in US counternarcotics policy, in which drug trafficking is treated as a national security threat equivalent to terrorism.
The initial strikes, which began in early September, targeted vessels that had departed Venezuela and Colombia’s Caribbean coasts. The operation has since expanded to the eastern Pacific.
The administration of US President Donald Trump has claimed that the targeted boats were linked to criminal groups it has designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations but has provided no solid evidence for those assertions. US lawmakers, foreign officials, and independent experts have raised questions about the legality and efficacy of the strikes, while the administration has insisted it rests on sound legal and strategic footing.
Officials, including Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have also made statements that contradict research by InSight Crime. They connected the first vessel struck by US missiles on September 2 to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, but in-depth investigation into the gang found no evidence that it is a transnational drug trafficking network. President Trump and others have also connected the missile strike to the deadly opioid crisis in the United States and stated that some of the boats that were struck were carrying fentanyl. But our research shows that fentanyl is almost exclusively produced in Mexico, not South America.
SEE ALSO: US Drone Strike Highlights Sucre’s Role in Venezuela’s Cocaine Corridor
In order to better understand this important evolution in anti-organized crime tactics, we created this timeline of how the strikes are unfolding.
Most of the information used to lay out the strikes was provided by the US government, and in many instances could not be corroborated.
This 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 each vessel.
September 2, 2025
The US military launched its first strike, targeting a small boat in the eastern Caribbean that had departed the Venezuelan state of Sucre. Trump announced the strike killed 11 people who he claimed were members of Tren de Aragua, one of the groups designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
September 15, 2025
Trump announced a second strike, which he said killed three individuals he referred to as “narcoterrorists from Venezuela.” Colombian President Gustavo Petro later claimed that one of those killed, Colombian citizen Alejandro Carranza, was a fisherman, although Colombian media reported that he had been arrested in 2016 for his involvement in the theft of guns from a police warehouse.
September 16, 2025
Trump claimed there was an additional strike that had not been previously reported, telling reporters, “We knocked off actually three boats, not two. But you saw two,” without providing more details. It is unclear if he was referring to another strike that would be announced later.
September 19, 2025
Trump announced a strike killed three individuals aboard a boat traveling on “a known narcotrafficking passage.” The strike reportedly took place around 80 nautical miles south of Beata Island in the Dominican Republic, and authorities from that country later confirmed that they had seized around a ton of cocaine that had been aboard the vessel.
SEE ALSO: Behind the Curtain: How Trump’s Spat With Colombia Could Impact Anti-Drug Ops
October 3, 2025
Hegseth announced a strike had killed four individuals “in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela.” He claimed the vessel was “transporting substantial amounts of narcotics headed to America,” but provided no further details about the intelligence behind that assessment.
October 14, 2025
US forces launched a strike on a boat “just off the Coast of Venezuela,” that Trump claimed was “confirmed” to be carrying drugs, killing six.
October 16, 2025
The US military destroyed a semi-submersible vessel, known as a “narco sub,” for the first time during the operation. This was also the first strike to leave survivors. Two individuals were killed, but one Ecuadorian and one Colombian survived. The Ecuadorian, Andrés Fernando Tufiño, was released upon being returned to his home country, where authorities declined to pursue criminal charges against him. The other survivor, Jeison Obando Pérez, arrived in Colombia in need of serious medical attention and may face prosecution for drug crimes.
Trump claimed that US intelligence had confirmed the vessel was “loaded up with mostly fentanyl,” and that “at least 25,000 Americans would die” had it reached its destination. But that 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 aboard a boat that Hegseth claimed in a tweet was “affiliated with” the Colombian guerrilla group the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN), another organization the United States has designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Hegseth compared drug trafficking organizations to the terrorist group Al Qaeda, a comparison he would continue to make following later strikes, stating, “the United States military will treat these organizations like the terrorists they are—they will be hunted, and killed.”
October 21, 2025
The US launched its first strike in the eastern Pacific, killing two in what marked an expansion of the operation’s geographic scope.
October 22, 2025
The US military killed three during the second strike in the eastern Pacific in two days.
October 24, 2025
Hegseth announced the first nighttime strike of the operation, which targeted what he claimed was “a vessel operated by Tren de Aragua.” Six died in the strike.
October 27, 2025
In the deadliest day since the beginning of the deployment, US forces killed 15 during strikes against four vessels in the eastern Pacific. Mexican search and rescue authorities attempted to locate one individual who initially survived the strike. However, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum later said the search failed, and spoke out against how the United States was conducting the strikes.
October 29, 2025
Hegseth announced that a strike in the eastern Pacific killed four aboard a vessel that he stated “like all the others, was known by our intelligence 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 about its origin but said US intelligence had identified the vessel as carrying a drug shipment.
November 4, 2025
The US military killed two people aboard a vessel in the Pacific, which Hegseth said “was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” without providing further evidence.
November 6, 2025
Three people were killed in a new attack in the Caribbean. Hegseth announced that the vessel was operated by a terrorist organization, without specifying which one.