The Santa Muerte

The Santa Muerte was a massive industrial cargo vessel (not a tiny boat — we’re talking multi-deck, industrial-scale infrastructure) that had been refitted into a floating production, processing, and dispatch hub for cocaine and fentanyl precursors. It functioned like a floating cartel city.

Think: pirate fortress × oil platform × cartel super-lab × human-trafficking prison.

The thing had:

• Processing labs
• Weapons caches
• Long-range comms and radar
• Armed guards
• Underground-style cells
• Forced labourers (yes — slaves)

The victims were from:

17+ countries, including:
Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Pakistan, India, Philippines, Venezuela, Colombia, Haiti, Honduras, El Salvador, Bangladesh, Eritrea, Sudan, Morocco, and more.

They were trafficked in by intermediaries, often thinking they were going to work on commercial fishing vessels.

WHO OPERATED IT

Not one cartel — a coalition:

• Venezuelan elements (corrupt military + colectivos + rogue PDVSA logistics)
• Colombian dissident FARC factions
• Mexican logistics facilitators (mostly Sinaloa-splinter transporters)
• Smaller Caribbean traffickers handling coastal transfers

Gonzo “El Azabache” Morales was the leader.  The boss associated with it used multiple aliases and no stable name. He is now confirmed dead.

WHY THE U.S. HIT IT SO HARD

Because the “floating fortress” wasn’t just moving drugs — it was:

• Funding violent extremist groups
• Trafficking people
• Running weapons
• Laundering money through shell shipping firms
• Operating in international waters to dodge all jurisdiction

And yes — U.S. Marines were killed in connection with boarding attempts during an earlier reconnaissance phase.  Those deaths were never officially published, which is why the name doesn’t appear in mainstream reporting.

The public story became: “Trump ordered strikes against narco-terrorist boats.”  The real backstory was much uglier.

 THE RAID / DESTRUCTION

When the U.S. finally moved in, it wasn’t a “boat takedown” — it was a full military strike on a fortress-ship with dozens of armed defenders.

Marines + SOCOM elements took fire. Casualties occurred.
The official communication only announced the strike, not the losses.

Afterwards:

• Survivors were detained offshore
• Trafficked victims were extracted
• The vessel was disabled and later sunk
• The leadership scattered into Venezuela and Colombia

This is why the public narrative now floats around in fragmented “urban legend” form — the official version was sanitised, the real version buried.