By Khamarie Rodriguez

Copyright trinidadexpress

United States President Donald Trump says the US military has thus far destroyed three boats leaving Venezuela, allegedly transporting drugs from that country.

Speaking before his departure for a State visit to London this morning, Trump said the military had struck down three vessels as of yesterday- including the two shown in footage released by the US government.

“We knocked off actually three boats, not two but you saw two. And the problem is there are very few boats out in the water, I can’t imagine why. Not even fishing boats, there’s nobody. Nobody wants to go take a fish,” Trump said.

To Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, he added, “I would say this right away: stop sending Tren de Aragua into the United States, stop sending drugs into the US. I would say to him, very strongly, stop sending people from your prisons into our country.”

Trump did not disclose the location of this third strike, if it was lethal or the number of people on board.

Announcing the second strike on his Truth Social platform, President Trump yesterday said that the strike had occurred in international waters and claimed that the three persons killed were confirmed ‘narcoterrorists’, who had been transporting illegal narcotics headed to the US.

During a White House briefing yesterday, he was asked if the government had proof of the vessel’s occupants being drug traffickers, to which he responded, “We have proof, all you have to do is look at the cargo…big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place. We have recorded evidence that they were leaving. We are very careful…The military has been amazing,” he said.

“We know what time they were leaving, when they were leaving, what they had,” he said.

He also said that the military had noted a lack of ships in the region. He said that if he were himself a fisherman, he would be cautious about going into the area.

“First when we went there were hundreds of boats, now there are no boats. I wonder why?” he said.

“I think the fishing business is probably a little hurt. There are literally no boats, this was a boat and we were surprised to see it. That means there are no drugs coming by sea, but they do come by land, and we are telling the cartels right now, we are going to be stopping them too,” said Trump.

Just moments before Trump’s announcement yesterday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro referred to the previous strike as a ‘heinous crime’ while speaking in a press conference in Caracas. The Venezuelan government has not yet responded to news of the strike, but in a post recounting the contents of yesterday’s press conference, Maduro this morning stated, “Venezuela can have absolute certainty that we will guarantee sovereignty and preserve peace.

We have to prepare fiercely to face what comes, when it comes and how it comes!.”