Pakistan’s Navy Made a $972M Drug Bust. The Real Story Is the ‘Budget’ Ship That Did It – Quwa

On 20 October 2025, the Mixed Maritime Forces (CMF) issued a press launch stating that PNS Yarmouk, one of many Pakistan Navy’s (PN) 4 Damen 2200/2600 offshore patrol vessels (OPVs), efficiently executed an interdiction operation, seizing USD $972.4 million in contraband within the course of.

The interdiction was accomplished beneath Mixed Job Power-150 (CTF-150), a multinational power of regional powers that operates within the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, and different adjoining areas alongside these seas. 

Management of CTF-150 rotates between its members, with Saudi Arabia at present on the helm of the coalition since August 2025. 

Below Operation Al-Masmak, PNS Yarmouk – in coordination with different pleasant property – carried out a boarding operation of two dhows, which each lacked exterior markings and did not transmit on the Computerized Identification System (AIS). 

Within the first dhow, the VBSS (go to, board, search, and seizure) crew seized two tons of crystal methamphetamine (ICE), estimated at $822.4 million in worth. In the meantime, the second dhow was caught with 350 kg of ICE and 50 kg of cocaine price $140 million and $10 million, respectively. 

Lauding the operation, the present commander of CTF-150, Royal Saudi Naval Forces (RSNF) Commodore Fahad Aljoiad, remarked: “PNS Yarmouk has had certainly one of its most profitable narcotics seizures for CMF, which is immediately attributed to the experience and collaboration of our naval forces inside the group.” 

For ships with a possible unit value of beneath $100 million, a narcotics bust price almost 10 instances that quantity is a robust indicator of return on funding (ROI). Nonetheless, that was exactly why the PN pursued these OPVs within the first place, i.e., devoted floor combatants for sea policing and coalition assist duties. In addition to intercepting doubtlessly billions of {dollars} price of prison exercise, these OPVs additionally free the PN’s multi-billion-dollar investments in frigates and corvettes from undue peacetime danger, extreme put on, and escalating operational prices. 

Subsequently, the ROI or profit accrued from the Damen OPV 2200s and OPV 2600s could possibly be many instances the worth the PN paid for them. Nonetheless, moreover justifying the expense, these OPVs might sign the PN’s underlying intention to construct Pakistan’s peacetime naval presence.  

In an earlier article on the Yarmouk-class OPVs, this creator said:

The PN has an lively curiosity in assuming a extra engaged function within the Arabian Sea throughout each its multinational coalition commitments and as a naval energy. The Yarmook-class OPVs present the PN with a sufficiently succesful platform to assist a lot of the missions managed by Mixed Job Power (CTF)- 150 and CTF-151, that are primarily centered on anti-piracy and anti-terrorism operations. 

This will free the PN’s dearer vessels – i.e.,  the Babur-class corvette and Tughril-class frigate – to give attention to the nation’s core naval pursuits whereas nonetheless retaining an lively hand in CTF-150/151 with out compromising the required capabilities. 

Extra OPVs would additionally allow the PN to proceed increasing its ‘regional maritime safety patrol’ protection, a PN-led initiative to independently make sure the safety of sea lanes connecting Pakistan to a number of key buying and selling companions, corresponding to Bahrain and others. 

Merely put, further OPVs would offer the PN with a comparatively low-cost, credibly succesful platform to imagine the majority of sea policing and low-intensity or asymmetrical safety operations at scale. Doing so would additionally free it from risking its extra succesful multi-role corvettes and frigates from getting broken or carrying out because of ceaselessly managing such operations.

In 2020, when it operated two Yarmouk-class OPVs (based mostly on Damen’s OPV 2200 design), the then outgoing Chief of Naval Employees, Admiral Zafar Mahmoud Abbasi, had said that the PN was in talks for six further OPVs of “bigger tonnage.” In 2024, the PN contracted Damen for 2 OPV 2600s, designated Yarmouk-Class Batch-II. 

The PN should have plans for a further 4 OPVs, which might make its sea policing, coalition assist, and basic maritime safety arm giant and succesful, particularly within the Arabian Sea. 

General, the potential underlying story of the PN, particularly the expansion of its floor fleet and, specifically, its patrol fleet, stems from its need to take full possession of Pakistan’s maritime safety pursuits.

On first look, stating the above could seem peculiar: a rustic ought to take full possession of all its safety pursuits, together with maritime ones. 

Nonetheless, the open seas are a very advanced setting, as actors can leverage them for their very own profit (e.g., commerce, fishing, and useful resource extraction). But, on the identical time, the ocean’s vastness induces a way that each nation ought to have possession in its safety.