Major investigation names 20 victims of US strikes on alleged drug boats

Since September 2025, the U.S. military has killed more than 190 people on small boats across the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. The Trump administration claims it is using lethal force to halt the flow of drugs into the United States. The United Nations says the attacks violate international law.

Until now reporting has mostly relied on the Trump administration’s version of events: U.S. officials claim those on the boats are ‘narco-terrorists’, posing a danger to American lives. The strikes are taking place on small boats in a vast ocean expanse – there are rarely survivors, no witnesses and the impact is almost impossible to detect.

A new cross-border investigation, Los Bombardeados: sin derecho a la defensa (‘Bombed, Without the Right to a Defence’), for the first time provides an alternative picture. It reveals that those on the boats are often day labourers, working on the boats as a job of last resort in some of the poorest towns in the region. It unpicks the impact of the strikes on commercial flights, anti-crime cooperation and the overall flow of drugs. The reporters found despite the claims of the Trump administration, conventional anti-narcotics operations are more effective at stopping cocaine smuggling than the boat strikes.

Coordinated by the Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística (CLIP), the investigation brought together journalists from Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad and Tobago. Journalists travelled to remote coastal towns to interview relatives, friends and even those smuggling drugs and people across international waters. The investigations include the last WhatsApp messages between a husband and wife before a U.S. strike tore their lives apart, a vivid picture of the coastal town of Güiria, where many of those killed originated from, and a detailed look at the wider economy of the drug trade.

The only partner based outside the region, Airwars provided technical support to the investigation over six months, as well as documentation and tracking of each strike in real time.

Read all the investigations in Spanish and English via CLIP’s website.

Watch the teaser on YouTube

Unique reporting challenges

The strikes provide a uniquely challenging environment for journalists and those pushing for accountability – the only footage released of the strikes are from U.S. military drones and aircraft, often shared first on social media by political officials. In the vastness of the ocean, geolocation of such strikes is often near impossible, while the political pressures have meant that Latin American governments have rarely commented on the strikes – even where they have been involved in search and rescue efforts.

So how do you investigate who the victims are, in what legal experts have concluded are extrajudicial killings?

The collective of journalists drew on extensive local knowledge of illicit economies, dynamics in local towns and the complex pressures facing citizens in the region. In uncovering the identities of some 20 individuals on the boats, the journalists also revealed just how complicated this story is. Despite work over several months by dozens of experienced journalists with their own extensive networks, the alliance has only been able to identify a fraction of those killed. With few leads as to where the strikes took place, identifying the origin locations of those on the boats requires months of painstaking research. And even when those likely communities have been found, pressures on civilians for speaking out are significant – from government forces, local police networks and the cartels.

Despite these challenges, the alliance has built a clear picture of the impact and dynamics of these strikes:

• Those killed on the boats are typically the poorest, least ‘influential’ members of alleged drug groups. Individuals identified often have loose affiliations with cartels, with the illicit economy the only viable livelihood option in towns where almost the entire population has been labelled ‘food insecure’ by humanitarian groups.
• Local and regional investigations have stalled due to fear of political reprisal with the United States. This has impacted almost every avenue for official investigation, including the ability of prosecutors to identify bodies washed up on coastal beaches.
• The legal basis for the targeting has become increasingly vague, with a spokesperson for the U.S. Southern Command telling the alliance that the attacks were not just on “narco-terrorists”, but also “their enablers”. A term that a legal expert interviewed for the investigation said was “violating the rules of [the administration’s] own bogus legal paradigm”.

Airwars’ role

Throughout the investigation, Airwars provided technical assistance including incident documentation, geolocation, video analysis, and consultation on munitions used during the strikes. This story forms part of Airwars’ wider investigative work on the U.S. military actions, including our work documenting U.S. strikes in Yemen, Venezuela, Iran and elsewhere over the last year. In January, Airwars produced an investigation with The Intercept revealing critical delays to search and rescue efforts by the U.S. following reports of survivors in strikes on alleged ‘drug boats.’

See more on our tracking and methodology for counting deaths at sea on our conflict page here.

Partners: CLIP (coordinator), Casa Macondo, Verdad Abierta, Alianza Rebelde Investiga (Runrunes, Tal Cual, El Pitazo), Trinidad & Tobago Guardian.

With support from Airwars and El Veinte.

Airwars would like to thank Fernanda Bustamante Talamás for translation services throughout the investigation.