DAKAR, Senegal, (AFP) — Senegal’s military has seized more than three tonnes of cocaine from a ship moored off the coast, in one of the country’s largest drugs hauls, the navy said Tuesday.

Naval authorities said there were 10 crew on board — one of whom was Senegalese.

They did not provide further crew details nor indicate the value of the cargo, but confirmed the boat was seized in international waters.

A navy patrol boat “seized nearly three tonnes of pure cocaine aboard a ship intercepted 150 kilometres (93 miles) off the coast” of Dakar, the navy posted to X, formerly Twitter.

Some 2.975 tonnes of cocaine was seized, a senior Senegalese military official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The army told AFP the ship was intercepted overnight Sunday.

The vessel was then escorted to a naval base in Dakar where it arrived on Tuesday for “identification and logging of the seized products”.

Long considered a simple transit zone for drugs produced in Latin America, West and Central Africa has become a region of high consumption, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The UN body says between 2019 and 2022, at least 57 tonnes of cocaine were seized in West Africa or en route to the region, primarily in Cape Verde (16.6 tonnes), Senegal (4.7 tonnes) and Benin (3.9 tonnes).

Senegal’s navy also in January seized more than 800 kilos of cocaine from a ship off the coast of Dakar.

Senegalese customs had furthermore announced in October 2022 the seizure of 300 kilos of cocaine, worth nearly 37 million euros ($40 million), in a refrigerated truck coming from neighbouring Mali.