Intense video shows what happens when the US Coast Guard runs down a suspected drug smuggling sub

The U.S. government tries to keep illicit drugs from getting into the United States, and the crew of the United States Coast Guard Cutter Munro isn't playing around.

Video from June released this week by the U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area shows the crew of the Munro coming up on "a self-propelled semi-submersible suspected drug smuggling vessel" (also known as a "narco sub") while operating in international waters in the Pacific Ocean.

The video shows the sub with the top portion of the vessel sticking just above the surface of the water as the Munro approaches. One crew member repeatedly shouts at the submersible in Spanish. Eventually, one of the Coast Guardsman jumps off the moving cutter onto the suspected drug vessel and start pounding away at the hatch.

Eventually, the hatch opens and the suspected smugglers come out with their hands up.

According to a Coast Guard press release issued Thursday, the interdiction in the video was part of 14 separate suspected drug smuggling "interdictions and disruptions" off the coasts of Central America, South America, and Mexico by the Munro and two other cutter crews that occurred between between May and July.

The statement adds that the crew of the Munro was slated to "offload more than 39,000 pounds of cocaine and 933 pounds of marijuana worth a combined estimated $569 million" at an event in San Diego on Thursday.

"Numerous U.S. agencies from the Departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security cooperated in the effort to combat transnational organized crime," the Coast Guard statement explains. "The Coast Guard, Navy, Customs and Border Protection, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with allied and international partner agencies, play a role in counter-drug operations. The fight against drug cartels in the Eastern Pacific requires unity of effort in all phases from detection, monitoring and interdictions, to criminal prosecutions by U.S. Attorneys in districts across the nation."

Here's the video.

Here are some other videos of interdictions that were part of the anti-drug effort.