MIAMI, USA (AP) — The US Coast Guard says its crews helped stop a semi-submersible craft filled with $180 million of cocaine in the western Caribbean.

The Coast Guard said today that with help from a US Customs and Border Protection airplane, its cutter located the submarine-like craft off the coast of Honduras near the Nicaraguan border. The Coast Guard, FBI dive teams and the Honduran navy had been searching for the vessel for more than 10 days.

The Coast Guard says the vessel sank, but not before an FBI dive team could recover nearly 7.5 tonnes of cocaine worth roughly $180 million.

The drugs and five crew members aboard the semi-submersible were turned over to US law enforcement.

Semi-submersible crafts are regularly used to smuggle drugs along Central America's Pacific Coast.

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