PARAMAIRBO, Suriname, Mar 14, CMC – Police seized an aircraft with more than 400 kilograms of cocaine and have arrested seven people including two “foreigners”, according to a statement released here.

The arrests come less than two weeks after a submarine with drugs was discovered on a remote property in District Saramacca, but while the aircraft was found in the same vicinity, authorities here are reluctant to say that there is a link between the two.

“It was not clear yet to which extent there was a relationship between the aircraft and the submarine,” according to the statement released on Wednesday by police, noting that the aircraft had been discovered near the East-West highway in District Saramacca, west of Paramaribo.

The plane, a four-seater Cessna Centurion twin-prop, was apparently forced to land, after taking off from an airstrip that has been constructed on a parcel of agricultural land. The statement described the airstrip as two-kilometres long and “advanced”.

The police have not yet released the names of those arrested but said there were two “foreigners” and five Surinamese nationals.

Media reports have linked the ownership of the land to the same person who owns the property where the submarine was discovered.

The flat semi-submersible vessel was found stuck in the mud of a shallow river in District Saramacca, a few kilometres off the coast with western neighbour Guyana. Its engine appeared broken. It is not clear when exactly it entered Suriname.

Police have said that they found the boat after receiving leads from international partners. So far police have arrested eight foreigners in connection with the sub-marine; seven Colombian nationals and one Cuban who resides in Suriname illegally.

Opposition legislator Edward Belfort has called on the authorities to investigate what happened to the drugs the boat allegedly came here to collect.

“These types of submarines are capable of transporting at least 10,000 kilograms of cocaine at a time. So that means there is 10,000 kilograms of cocaine somewhere in Suriname that they had to pick up or dropped off. Where is it?” Belfort said, adding that he is worried that Suriname is becoming the narcotics barn of the region.