Colombia has made its largest cocaine seizure in a decade, authorities said, with 14 tonnes confiscated at the country’s main Pacific port amid escalating tensions with Washington, which has criticised Bogota’s anti-drug efforts as insufficient.

The cocaine, stored in dozens of 50-kilogramme sacks inside a warehouse, was "camouflaged" in a mixture with plaster, the Defence Ministry said in a post on X.

It was "the largest seizure by the Colombian police in the last decade," President President Gustavo Petro said.

The operation took place in the southwestern port of Buenaventura, a strategic departure point for cocaine shipments, and was carried out "without a single death," according to President Petro.

The seizure in the world’s largest cocaine-producing country comes as the White House threatens Petro with financial sanctions and Colombia’s removal from the list of allies in the US-led “war on drugs.”

Extrajudicial executions

Petro has been openly critical of US President Donald Trump’s anti-drug strategy and has rejected as "extrajudicial executions" the bombings Trump has authorised against boats suspected of transporting drugs in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

Colombia regularly breaks its own annual records for coca cultivation and cocaine production.

It currently has about 253,000 hectares under coca cultivation and produces at least 2,600 tonnes of cocaine, according to the latest United Nations figures from 2023.

Petro has described potential US sanctions as unfair and has argued that record seizures have taken place during his administration.