Exactly
You wonder where these boats are heading and who is awaiting their arrival, but I would guess the answer is some little port in Mexico and cartel members with plans to get the shipments ready for distribution and sales. That implies the normal procedure is to get the product into America (and other places) by some other means. I doubt they would sail more boats out of the same location to locations along the coasts of the U.S., Canada or Europe, anywhere else they want to sell.
This probably explains the strategy of destroying rather than following (covertly) the boats to their destination. They already know the destination(s) and nothing more can be gained from allowing more product to arrive in those ports.
The cartels are sure to look for a plan B if the trans-shipment pipeline breaks down.
But I could predict that the organizers will try to stage a false flag event where a credibly “wrong target” is blown out of the water (maybe not even by American military). Then what?