On October 16, 2025, the U.S. military carried out a strike on a semi-submersible vessel, referred to as a “a drug-carrying submarine,” in the Caribbean Sea, killing two people referred to by the United States as “narcoterrorists” and injuring two others, men also referred to as “narcoterrorists” who were returned to their home counties of Ecuador and Colombia after surviving the strike and being rescued by the U.S. military.

The strike was first disclosed by Reuters reporter @phildstewart who posted on Twitter/X the morning of October 17th that “The U.S. military staged a helicopter rescue to pick up survivors from Thursday’s strike and is holding them on a Navy ship”, later adding the details that according to sources familiar with the matter, the U.S. military was holding two survivors aboard a Navy ship after rescuing individuals from a “suspected drug vessel” struck in the Caribbean by a U.S. strike which killed two others. President Trump’s initial statement on the attack to reporters, as quoted by Reuters, was that the vessel was “a drug-carrying submarine built specifically for the transportation of massive amounts of drugs” while the official source told Reuters that the vessel was possibly a “semi-submersible”.

On October 18th President Donald Trump officially confirmed the operation in a Truth Social post and public remarks, saying that US forces had “destroy[ed] a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE” that was “loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics,” and asserting that “there were four known narcoterrorists on board the vessel. Two of the terrorists were killed,” while two survivors were taken into US custody, specifying that “The two surviving terrorists are being returned to their Countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia, for detention and prosecution.” Trump claimed the vessel was navigating on a “well-known narcotrafficking transit route” towards the United States and emphasised that no US forces were harmed. The post included a video of what has been identified by news outlets as a “semi-submersible” which can be seen moving partly below water and partly visible above water until it explodes, and the video then moves to an aerial view of the boat. It is unclear if this second view was taken before or after the strike.

The two survivors were later publicly identified as Jeison (also reported as Jonathan) Obando Pérez, a 34-year-old Colombian national, and Andrés Fernando Tufiño Chila, a 41-year-old Ecuadorian national. Both were reportedly injured during the attack. Authorities of Colombia reported that Obando Perez had been repatriated and placed under hospital care in Bogotá due to head injuries and was placed on a ventilator, with later medical reports indicating he had been admitted with “a fracture at the base of his skull and orbit, as well as intracranial injuries.” Colombia’s interior minister initially reported that the individual would undergo processing due to drug trafficking crimes, with President @petrogustavo posting on Twitter/X that “We welcomed the Colombian detained in the narco submarine. We are glad he is alive and will be prosecuted according to the law.” Authorities of Ecuador reported that the country similarly received Tufiño; this individual received a subsequent medical study upon their return.

Politico quoted AP in reporting on October 20th that according to an anonymous official, Ecuadorian survivor Tufiño was in good health and that “there is no evidence or indication that could lead prosecutors or judicial authorities to be certain” of any violation of current laws in Ecuador, leading him to be released by Ecuadorian authorities.

El Pais then reported on November 4th that the Colombian survivor Obando Perez had been released from Kennedy Hospital in Bogota on October 28th and that the Attorney General’s office did not plan to conduct a formal investigation due to the lack of evidence that a crime was committed in Colombia. After a preliminary investigation, a source from Colombia’s Public Prosecutor’s Office told El Pais that they “have not yet found any evidence or testimony indicating that this person committed a crime on national territory.” The sources pointed out that based on the limited investigation, if Obando Perez was involved in narcotics trafficking, he was likely a low-level employee, adding “He has no criminal record, nor is his name associated with any criminal network. Most likely, he was hired to transport the cargo to a specific location, but he was not a mastermind of the drug trafficking operation. This is what is known as outsourcing criminal activity.”

Relatives and local media in Ecuador and Colombia described the survivors as poor sailors but not cartel drug traffickers. CNN told the story of Andrés Fernando Tufiño Chila, a father of six who lived in a poor coastal community two hours from the Ecuadorian port city of Guayaquil on the coast of Santa Elena province. His sister painted a picture to CNN of a fisherman who took dangerous sailing jobs at sea because of the very low pay offered locally and said “He’s very happy, fun. He’s everything I loved most.” Relatives claimed that despite the widespread nature of the drug business within the area’s waters, Tufiño never worked as a criminal. The same CNN news reported that, according to court filings in the United States, Tufiño had an earlier conviction there involving the smuggling of drugs near the coast of Mexico in 2020 that resulted in him being deported, with an article from NTN24 specifying that he had been convicted to a five-year-prison sentence in the US in 2021 before his deportation.

Reports later cited the Prosecutor General’s Office in saying that Obando had no criminal record and that there were no ties found with drug trafficking organizations operating in Colombia; it seems that the probable purpose of the employment of this individual was the transport of goods rather than higher level organization or coordination, and the case file had been closed.

The New York Times provided details on the circumstances of the strike, which they said occurred late Thursday and was launched by Special Operations aircraft in the southern Caribbean “after U.S. intelligence analysts assessed it was carrying some kind of drugs”. Analysts then saw minutes after the strike what appeared to be two survivors near the wrecked vessel and several “floating bales”. Officials told the New York Times that after the strike, Navy and Coast Guard helicopters rescued the men and brought them to the Iwo Jima, a nearby amphibious assault ship, to receive medical attention. The men were then transferred from Pentagon legal custody to the State Department on the 18th to prepare them for repatriation.

At the time of publication, the names and details of the two other people killed have not been found.

Methodological note about classification of those killed in this incident

In documenting this incident, Airwars is following the guidance outlined by independent International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law experts, whereby those on the vessels are understood to be civilians, given that the legal framework in which the strikes are being conducted remains in question.

Airwars has therefore included a civilian casualty count of two deaths and two injuries.