AKIPRESS.COM - A 1.8-ton cocaine shipment worth an estimated $50 million that was thought to be destined for the U.S. market was seized off the coast of Puerto Rico, Business Insider reported referring to federal authorities.

The shipment was intercepted on Monday evening on a boat that was 12.5 miles off the resort town of Dorado on Puerto Rico's north coast.

“We have seized more than three tons of cocaine over the last month,” Angel Melendez, head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations office in San Juan, said on Wednesday.

Melendez told a news conference that a drug bust netted 1.1 tons of cocaine on the south coast of Puerto Rico in March. Drug traffickers use the Caribbean corridor as one of the preferred routes to send drugs to the United States, he said.

Two suspected smugglers arrested on Monday were identified as Reny Alexander López Meneces and Andri Rivas Rojas Irving, both Venezuelan nationals. If convicted, they face from 10 years to life in prison and are being held at the federal detention center in San Juan on drug trafficking charges.