US Coast Guard Offloads $41mln Drug Haul

Approximately 1,100 kilograms of cocaine and 4,420 pounds of marijuana interdicted in the Caribbean Sea worth an estimated wholesale value of $41 million was offloaded by U.S. Coast Guardsmen at Coast Guard Base Miami Beach, Fla., Tuesday.

The drugs were seized as part of Operation Martillo and Unified Resolve. On September 20, a Coast Guard HC-144 Ocean Sentry aircraft located a suspicious go-fast vessel southeast of Isla Saona, Dominican Republic. The Coast Guard Cutter Richard Dixon responded to the report and interdicted the vessel after the suspects jettisoned four packages into the water, multiple packages remained onboard. A Coast Guard boarding team recovered in total of 49 bales of marijuana weighing 2,450 pounds. Three suspects aboard the go-fast boat were taken into custody and transferred to U.S. authorities for prosecution.

“These seizures highlight how effectively the U.S Coast Guard and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection are working together to disrupt the flow of illicit drugs from South America into the United States and Caribbean nations,” said Cmdr. Timothy Cronin, deputy chief of law enforcement for the Coast Guard 7th District. “We have to keep these drugs from penetrating our borders. More importantly, we have to get after the organized criminal networks that fuel the violence and instability in the Western Hemisphere.”

According to the Coast Guard, this has been a record year in terms of drugs seizures. Since October 2014, the Coast Guard has removed 130 metric tons of cocaine ($4.3 billion), the most since 2008. In addition, the Coast Guard and its federal partners have brought nearly 500 smugglers in more than 200 cases in for prosecution and seized over 135 vessels, both record highs. These numbers include seizures on both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.