A small plane that had apparently taken off from Venezuela and carried more than a ton of cocaine on Wednesday crashed off the coast of Colombia, the Associated Press reported. The aircraft had been pursued by the Colombian military.

Video released by the South American country's air force shows a Hawker 800 twin-engine corporate jet being intercepted by fighters after it entered its airspace around 2:30 a.m. local time, according to the newswire.

The pilot maneuvered in an attempt to escape, officials told the AP, but an engine failure eventually led to the plane crashing into the Caribbean off Puerto Colombia, a town near the northern city of Barranquilla.

"The airplane ... which left Venezuela and was destined for Central America, was detected in the early hours of today when it illegally entered Colombian air space," the Colombian military reiterated in a statement, according to the Guardian.

Officials in the neighboring country, however, disputed that report. Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino insisted that the flight had not originated in his country but rather in an unidentified Central American nation, Reuters noted.

"We know that plane came from Central America," Padrino said flanked by other high-ranked members of the Venezuelan military, whose air force he added had fired at the aircraft in the early hours of the morning.

Colombia, a major cocaine producer, turns out some 300 tons of the drug annually, Reuters said based on data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. In 2014 alone, local authorities confiscated about 166 tons of the narcotic.

Venezuela, meanwhile, has become a key transit country for cocaine produced in the neighboring country, the Associated Press recalled. Several Venezuelan government officials and high-level members of the military have been sanctioned by the United States in recent years for allegedly colluding with drug traffickers.

The Wall Street Journal had reported on Monday that U.S. prosecutors were investigating Diosdado Cabello, widely considered the second most powerful man in embattled President Nicolás Maduro's administration. They were scrutinizing him and other Venezuelan officials "on suspicion that they have turned the country into a global hub for cocaine trafficking and money laundering."

Cabello, meanwhile, staunchly denied the allegations on Tuesday, according to Reuters.