8 Americans arrested as Bahamas police seize guns and cash from docked boat

Police in the Bahamas arrested eight Americans and seized weapons, ammunition and a “considerable sum of undeclared cash” in a multiagency operation on Tuesday.

The Royal Bahamas Police Force said in a news release that officers from the Alice Town Police Station worked with the Bahamas Customs Department to search a vessel docked at a port on Bimini, a chain of western islands. The officers were “acting on intelligence,” the RBPF said, but they did not specify what information that included.

The officers found three “high-powered weapons” and 11 other firearms, as well as the undeclared cash and a “substantial quality of ammunition” on the boat, police said.

The 10 occupants aboard the boat — eight Americans, one South African and one Guyanese person — were taken into custody, the RBPF said. Those arrested ranged in age from 21 to 62 years old. The RBPF did not identify them. The weapons, money and ammunition were confiscated.

The investigation remains ongoing, police said. The RBPF did not specify what the goal of the investigation is or if more arrests are expected. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for more details from CBS News.

Bimini is the westernmost part of the Bahamas and the country’s closest point to the mainland United States. Alice Town is the region’s capital.