All of the money was concealed in sacks of fertilizer chemicals in containers transported on commercial ships, Morton said.
“When it’s packed in very large containers, it’s extremely difficult to probe; it’s extremely difficult to X-ray. And so it was a very good means of concealing currency,” he said.
The ports of Buenaventura and Manzanillo are key points along a well-known route used for smuggling cocaine northward to Mexico and then on to the United States, and for sending cash back into Colombia, where most of the cocaine originates, ICE said in a news release.
Morton called the smugglers “very, very sophisticated,” saying they were using the lawful shipping trade to send drug profits from the U.S. through Mexico to Colombia.