Two aircraft from Costa Rica’s Air Surveillance Service (SVA) were able to guide a Costa Rican Coast Guard vessel in recovering 607 kilos of cocaine that were spotted floating at sea, tied to a buoy, the Ministry of Public Security (MSP) said on Friday.

The discovery was made in the Gulf of Nicoya, in the waters of Costa Rica’s central Pacific, just one day after the Costa Rican Coast Guard intercepted a speedboat some 75 miles off the coast of Quepos carrying a 875 kilo shipment of the drug.

The tactic of leaving drug shipments at sea for later recovery is not new. In the past, buoys have even been found to be outfitted with radio beacons and GPS to aide drug traffickers in locating the shipments.

Costa Rica’s Ministry of Public Security (MSP) and Drug Control Police (PCD) are expecting a record level of cocaine trafficking through the country and its territorial waters this year, due in large part to increases in production in the source countries of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia.

The MSP estimates that some 1,700 tons of cocaine will flow through Costa Rica and its territorial waters this year, a nearly 42 percent increase from the 1,200 tons estimated to have been trafficked through Costa Rican territory in 2015 and 2.5 times as much as the 670 tons believed to have been trafficked through the country in 2014.

Last year, Cost Rican authorities were able to seize just 15 tons – less than 1 percent – of the estimated 1,200 tons believed to have flown through the country’s territory.

Costa Rican law enforcement agencies have seized a total of 2,600 kilos of cocaine so far this year.