A US official has claimed The Bahamas has “relaxed a lot” of its immigration enforcement after the arrest of a group of Bahamians in attempted human smuggling incidents near Florida.

St Lucie County Sheriff Richard Del Toro made the claim while describing last month’s operation in an interview with American media. 

He said partners at the DEA received intelligence that several boats were coming from The Bahamas carrying large amounts of cocaine and undocumented immigrants. 

He said: “So working with our partners, we set up an operation over the weekend, and all came about. We got three vessels and 30 undocumented Chinese nationals and 168 kilos of cocaine.” 

Last week, The Tribune reported that five Bahamians, along with 30 Chinese nationals, were intercepted by US Coast Guard officials in separate attempted human smuggling incidents off Florida. Two of the Chinese nationals were said to be minors. 

According to reports, three other Bahamian men allegedly involved in countersurveillance were arrested in Florida. 

Mugshots of the men, some of whom are from Abaco, were widely shared on social media. 

US authorities said the operation began after they received intelligence that an Airbnb in Fort Pierce had been rented by a group of men planning to travel to The Bahamas to smuggle drugs and people into the US. 

The next day, on August 30, authorities spotted two suspect vessels leaving the Fort Pierce Inlet. Later that day, they learned of a third boat involved, with all three returning from The Bahamas. 

Sheriff Del Toro said of the operation: “Since President Trump’s gotten into office, southern border obviously has been shut down so people are going to find other ways, like water, people finding the path of least resistance” 

“So what we’ve seen is The Bahamas has really relaxed a lot of their immigration and so people are going there as kind of a launching point to get here to the United States.”