British warship HMS Argyll, on a six-month deployment in the Caribbean, seized 850 packages of cocaine in Dominican territorial waters on Saturday, 15 November 2014. The four occupants of the speedboat carrying the drugs were delivered to a US Coast Guard vessel that was also taking part in the anti-drop operation. The National Drug Control Agency helped detect the shipment. The HMS Argyll intercepted the speedboat 81 nautical miles to the southwest of the Dominican Republic near Haitian territorial waters. The DNCD reported that drug traffickers frequently use the route along the boundary with Haitian territorial waters as a way of eluding the Dominican authorities. The interception took place in international waters, closer to Haiti than to the Dominican Republic.
The British ship is in the area to support regional counter-narcotics initiatives to deter the illegal drugs trade in the Caribbean region.