US Strikes 8th Alleged Drug Boat, For First Time In Pacific Waters

In what marks another expanse of the Trump-ordered anti-Venezuela drug trafficking operation, the US military on Tuesday night attacked another suspected smuggling boat, but this time on the Pacific side of South America.

“In what is the eighth known U.S. attack on a boat since Sept. 2, two to three individuals aboard the vessel were killed,” CBS reports of the newly disclosed attack. “The other seven strikes targeted vessels in the Caribbean.”

This brings the total number of dead since the Pentagon’s intervention off Venezuela to 34 killed. But unlike all the prior attacks, the body of water where this 8th attack occurred is not directly off Venezuela and its Caribbean coast.

The new attack strongly suggests that the Pentagon may start going after boats elsewhere in waters off South America, and not just near Venezuela. 

But the White House’s whole focus since these attacks started have focused on Caracas and the “rogue” Maduro “regime”. Still, the operations have clearly gone beyond this scope, as CBS also reviews:

Two men survived a U.S. strike on a suspected drug-trafficking submersible vessel in the Caribbean last week, and the U.S. repatriated the men, one from Ecuador and one from Colombia. Ecuador released the man, identified as Andrés Fernando Tufiño, after authorities said they had found no evidence that he had committed a crime.

The Colombian citizen remains hospitalized after his repatriation. Interior Minister Armando Benedetti said he “arrived with brain trauma, sedated, drugged, breathing with a ventilator.” 

This raises some obvious questions: if these are “terrorists” – as the US administration has labeled them – then why so quickly return them to their home countries? And if they are not terrorists, then it raises legality and human rights issues related to what in essence are summary executions happening on the high seas, as Sen. Rand Paul has lately pointed out.

Declassified footage released of last week’s attack in the southern Caribbean…

“It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route.

U.S. Intelligence confirmed this vessel was loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics. pic.twitter.com/WWlMBtLiXD

— OSINT Expert (@OsintExperts) October 18, 2025

What’s more is that the identities of most of the 34 killed thus far remain unknown and shrouded in mystery. The White House has simply wanted the public to accept its explanation of these somewhat unprecedented operations without questioning. Congress has also had no oversight, and there’s certainly been no declaration of war.