U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it seized 52 bales of cocaine worth roughly $30 million near Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands last week.

CBP's Air and Marine Operations and Caribbean Border Interagency Group said it interdicted a smuggling vessel in international waters after a " multi-hour" pursuit.

The smugglers told CBP they were Dominican Republic nationals, and they were taken to the U.S. Virgin Islands.

CBP officials said Puerto Rico is becoming an attractive smuggling route this year for cocaine and heroin headed for the United States. In 2017, CBP seized nearly 66,000 pounds of drugs in and around Puerto Rico, more than any prior year on record.

“Drug trafficking organizations have always sought to use the Caribbean as a route to smuggle both narcotics and migrants. The logistics to do so are intrinsically more complicated than traversing the southwest border,” Jeffrey Quinones, a spokesman for CBP's Puerto Rico and Virgin Island outposts, told the Washington Examiner. “Nonetheless, we have seen cyclical increases in the quantity of narcotics brought to these islands and a diversity of means to conceal and enter the product."