【Focus on: AP report on the independent investigation of the "toxic ship" in the Caribbean Sea】
On November 7, 2025, in Washington, the Associated Press wrote in a press release:
The Trump administration claimed that ships smuggling drugs were attacked militarily, resulting in more than 60 deaths. Trump and senior U.S. officials claimed that these ships were owned by drug terrorists and cartel members who provided deadly drugs to American communities.
The Associated Press has identified the identities of four men and compiled detailed information on at least another five men, providing the first detailed description of the deceased.
In dozens of interviews conducted in villages on the northeastern coast of Venezuela where some ships set off, residents and relatives said that these people did indeed traffic drugs, but they were not drug terrorists or leaders of cartels or gangs.
Residents and relatives said that most of them had traveled on such ships for the first or second time, and each trip could earn at least $500. They were laborers, fishermen, motorcycle taxi drivers. Two were low-level professional criminals. One was a local notorious crime boss who outsourced smuggling services to human traffickers.
Original text: www.toutiao.com/article/1848184595309768/
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