The Tribune

OPERATION Bahamas, Turks and Caicos has provided a formal framework for US counter-narcotics personnel and aircraft to operate in The Bahamas for more than four decades, making it central to questions raised this week about the activities of Drug Enforcement Administration agents in the country.

Known as OPBAT, the programme was established in 1982 as a joint effort involving the United States, The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands to stop cocaine and marijuana moving through the northern Caribbean.

US congressional testimony in 2011 described OPBAT as operating under a tripartite agreement between the United States, The Bahamas and the United Kingdom, which acts on behalf of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The testimony said the agreement authorised OPBAT helicopters and personnel to conduct counter-drug operations in The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The DEA has historically led the operation, working alongside the US Coast Guard, US Customs and Border Protection, the US Department of State and Bahamian and Turks and Caicos law enforcement agencies.

The arrangement grew out of the explosion of Caribbean cocaine trafficking in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Bahamian islands and surrounding waters became important transhipment and refuelling points for traffickers moving drugs from South America towards the United States.

Historically, Bahamian officers played the enforcement role during OPBAT missions.

A US State Department report on operations in 2001 said Royal Bahamas Police Force Drug Enforcement Unit officers and Turks and Caicos police flew on OPBAT missions and were responsible for arrests and seizures, while a DEA special agent travelled aboard flights to provide advice, coordination and intelligence support.

The operation has also relied heavily on US aircraft, surveillance and maritime resources across The Bahamas’ sprawling archipelago.

In a 2014 operation, for example, US Customs and Border Protection aircraft detected a suspicious vessel south of Grand Bahama before DEA and Bahamian drug enforcement officers moved in. A US Coast Guard helicopter assisted, while a DEA aircraft transported the seized marijuana to Nassau.

The partnership remains active.

In March 2024, the US Coast Guard said OPBAT partners collaborated after Bahamian police and DEA agents seized about 391 kilograms of cocaine from a suspected smuggling aircraft in Mayaguana. The RBPF took custody of a suspect and continued the investigation.

OPBAT’s work has also extended beyond narcotics. US authorities say its assets have been used in human-smuggling investigations and search-and-rescue operations throughout the region.

The United States has also used the broader security partnership to provide equipment and training to Bahamian agencies. The State Department said four high-performance marine interception vessels provided through US assistance programmes participated in OPBAT operations between 2013 and 2019 that resulted in the seizure of nearly eight metric tonnes of cocaine. It said OPBAT seized 219 metric tonnes of illegal drugs in 2019.

Older State Department records illustrate the programme’s scale. By 2003, US officials reported that OPBAT had seized more than 75,000 kilograms of cocaine and 375,000 kilograms of marijuana since its inception, citing United Kingdom government statistics.

The US Coast Guard has described OPBAT as the foundation of security cooperation in the northern Caribbean, although officials from the participating countries have also discussed modernising or expanding the agreements underpinning regional security cooperation.

However, OPBAT's existence does not, by itself, establish whether the DEA agents at the centre of the current dispute were acting as part of an OPBAT operation or whether the activities in question fell within the authority granted under its agreements.