Three tons of cocaine were intercepted by the Senegalese navy on a ship traveling off the coast of Senegal with a crew of seven people.

The ship was intercepted on Thursday “south of Senegalese waters, 425 km offshore,” the navy announced in a statement on X (previously Twitter).

The ship and its seven crew members were held on Saturday at a naval facility in Dakar, according to the navy, which did not provide any details.

A Senegalese, a Venezuelan, and five Bissau-Guineans are among the crew members, a navy source told AFP via phone on Saturday.

“The minimum value of this seizure is 126 billion CFA francs,” according to the navy’s news release.

On November 28, the Senegalese navy announced the seizure of approximately three tons of cocaine aboard a ship cruising off the coast of Senegal with a crew of ten people, one of whom was Senegalese. In less than 20 days, approximately six tons of cocaine have been intercepted at sea off the beaches of Senegal.

Earlier this year, the Senegalese navy intercepted almost 800 kilograms of cocaine from a ship off the coast of Dakar.

According to the United Nations Office on Drug Abuse and Crime (UNODC), West and Central Africa have also become high consumption areas for narcotics generated in Latin America and traveling to Europe.