“CALI, Colombia -- They see themselves as the cowboys of the drug trade, highly experienced crews that ferry narcotics on small boats across the open seas, running on a mix of bravado, skill and dreams of a massive payday.
Now, designated as terrorists by the Trump administration, they face not only the perils of a capricious sea but also the new danger of getting blown out of the water by the U.S. military. The trade's unofficial motto -- "deliver or die" -- has never rung so true.
Three men who have manned these drug boats spoke to The Wall Street Journal, describing an essential part of the narcotics trade that is now in President Trump's sights.
They run drug cargoes worth as much as $70 million on sleek 40-foot-long boats, often built from fiberglass and powered by oversize outboards. Called go fasts, these boats are the workhorses for the traffickers along 2,000 miles of Colombian coastline -- and hundreds more miles in Ecuador and Venezuela.
"These people are experts at sea," a Colombian prosecutor who has tried members of drug-boat crews said. "They have to know it perfectly," the prosecutor said. "They need to understand how waves move, how to move a boat through them."
Prosecutors and former naval officials say many of the pilots and crew of the go-fast boats got their start as fishermen before transitioning into smuggling. The crews are usually made up of three or four men: a pilot, the most experienced and best paid; a mechanic who troubleshoots and keeps the boat's fuel tanks full; a guarantor trusted by the buyer and seller; and sometimes a navigator to chart the way.
One Colombian pilot who plies the Caribbean said crews look for any advantage, from sailing at night or in rough weather, even in storms when Colombian government patrol boats might stay in port. Before the U.S. military strikes, he said, his main concerns were capsizing, drowning and arrest.
Even with the new threats, the incentives remain huge. The pilot said a clean run of two or three tons can mean $100,000 for a day's work. With that kind of money at stake, he said it wouldn't be hard to find willing men to keep running the boats, even with the threat of military strikes.
"The ocean is very big, very big," the pilot said. "These drug organizations live from trafficking. They will continue to do this. This doesn't end. This will continue even if the United States continues its bombings."
Smuggling runs are mapped out weeks ahead, the Colombian navy says, with the cocaine often making its way north in stages. The boat crews try to slip past or outrun whatever Colombia and the U.S. put in front of them: coastal patrol boats to frigates and helicopters farther out.
Some crews run the entire route themselves -- from Colombia to Honduras or even Mexico. With speed of the essence, they don't stop for anything.
In another strategy, crews toss tightly wrapped bundles of cocaine into the water marked with brightly colored buoys or hidden GPS beacons so another crew can retrieve them.
Another involves a meeting at a fixed point in the open ocean, with smugglers using geolocation to find each other. The cocaine is passed from one vessel to the other, which embarks north.
Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have called the traffickers terrorists and legitimate targets as part of a strategy to choke the flow of drugs into the U.S. The U.S. military says it has killed 83 people in more than 20 strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs, attacks critics say amount to extrajudicial executions.
The crew members are a link in a production and supply chain that includes an array of workers, from drug-crop farmers to cocaine-lab workers, enforcers to middlemen, a web of subcontractors paid by the load. It isn't a hierarchical system.
Colombia offers ideal launching points: small fishing villages along 1,000 miles of Caribbean coastline, and an additional 800 miles along the Pacific, where 128 channels and rivers let traffickers sprint into the ocean after loading up in mangrove swamps. Those Pacific launching points aren't far from the myriad jungle labs where cocaine is produced.
"Just imagine, you have these estuaries, these channels, all interconnected and they permit you to quickly move in your boat," said Antonio Jose Martinez, a former rear admiral who, until three years ago, oversaw the Colombian navy's operations in the Pacific. "And these young men know the routes. They know them perfectly."
Take the case of Ricardo Perez, who Colombian prosecutors said had a lucrative business on the country's Caribbean coast. What began as a small outfit grew into a network of speedboats sending large loads, according to prosecutors, who built a case after a series of seizures tied to Perez. One of the speedboats seized last year carried a ton and a half of cocaine worth $42 million.
To operate, payoffs were made to a powerful drug-trafficking militia, the Gulf Clan. The cocaine they shipped didn't belong to any one narco group but to a collection of traffickers -- from gangs to freelance investors buying space to transport a few pounds, a common practice in the business. Determined to deliver for his clients, Perez hired the most seasoned pilots to ensure the cocaine arrived unhindered.
"Perez was the standout leader, the one who coordinated the stockpiling for various organizations and the shipments," the prosecutor on the case said. Perez was charged in August with overseeing smuggling of cocaine to Panama, Costa Rica and Honduras, countries that served as a first leg before transport to the U.S. Neither he nor his lawyer could be reached to comment.
In the country's remote seaside hamlets, some experienced crew members are thinking twice about whether to take to sea with cocaine.
"I think it's a serious situation," said a drug-boat crew member who has ferried cocaine north along Colombia's Caribbean coast. "What really worries me is them bombing us, you know? We've got families, kids -- all of that."” [1]
1. Strikes Don't Deter Drug-Boat Crews. Forero, Juan. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 28 Nov 2025: A1.
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