Oct 2025 – French navy intercepts a 7‑ton fishing vessel in the Atlantic, seizing a large cocaine shipment and demonstrating the growing maritime focus of French anti‑narcotics operations in the region [3].

Jan 2025 – French forces board a 9‑ton merchant vessel bound for Europe, adding another major haul to the year’s Caribbean interdictions and underscoring the scale of trans‑Atlantic trafficking routes [3].

Dec 12, 2025 – French navy captures an unflagged boat in the Caribbean and seizes ≈2.3 tons of cocaine, pushing the Antilles‑Guyana zone’s 2025 total above 31 tons; French Foreign Minister Jean‑Noël Barrot unveils a multipronged EU‑wide sanctions plan targeting drug‑trafficking networks [3].

2025 – UNODC reports that coca‑cultivation areas now cover roughly twice the size of Greater London and four times that of New York, indicating a record‑high production footprint that fuels global supply chains [1].

Jan 8, 2026 – Colombia announces a historic seizure of 446 tons of cocaine this year, with Brig. Gen. Ricardo Sánchez‑Silvestre calling it a “historic total” and the “highest in 30 years,” while DEA agents remain embedded with Colombia’s DIRAN unit to plan joint missions [2].

Jan 2026 – President Donald Trump labels President Gustavo Petro a “sick man who likes selling cocaine to the United States” and threatens military action, a rhetoric that later softens but raises safety concerns for DEA personnel on the ground [1][2].

Feb 3, 2026 – BBC journalists ride in a Black Hawk with Colombian Jungle Commandos over the Putumayo district, witnessing the core coca‑growing area that supplies ~70 % of world cocaine and hearing Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez state that a lab is destroyed every 40 minutes and 2,800 tons have been seized in 3½ years [1].

Feb 3, 2026 – Major Cristhian Cedano Díaz warns that destroyed labs can be rebuilt in a day, but “repeated raids cut gang profits,” noting that traffickers now use drones, bitcoin and on‑site chemists to evade attacks [1].

Feb 3, 2026 – Local farmer “Javier” tells reporters that coca cultivation is his only livelihood for feeding five daughters, while guerrilla intimidation and recent crop robbery push him to consider returning to coal mining [1].

Feb 19, 2026 – Mexico’s navy intercepts a low‑riding semisubmersible 250 nm south of Manzanillo, seizing nearly 4 tons of cocaine and adding to a weekly total of almost 10 tons, using intelligence from U.S. Northern Command and Joint Interagency Task Force South [4].

Feb 19, 2026 – El Salvador’s navy stops a 180‑ft Tanzanian‑flagged vessel 380 nm southwest of its coast, recovering 6.6 tons of cocaine—the country’s biggest haul ever—and arrests ten crew members from Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama and Ecuador; the haul is later displayed on the FMS Eagle in La Union [4].

Feb 19, 2026 – U.S. strikes earlier that week kill 11 people on three suspected drug‑trafficking boats; President Claudia Sheinbaum publicly rejects the strikes, sends dozens of cartel prisoners to the United States, and declares a “tougher cartel policy” in response [4].

2026 (ongoing) – U.S. assistance to Colombia remains at roughly $210 million for the fiscal year, including $31 million for agricultural support, sustaining aviation, training, technology and intelligence exchanges that underpin joint counter‑narcotics operations [2].

2026‑2027 (planned) – France intends to formalize an EU sanctions regime against trans‑national drug‑trafficking networks, building on the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre‑Narcotics collaboration established earlier in the decade [3].