CNN reports:
The Coast Guard has reeled in a record 355,000 pounds of cocaine over the past year, results that officials say have forced smugglers to transport their drugs through costlier methods like semisubmersible vessels and liquefied drugs. Coast Guard officials are set to announce Thursday that they seized cocaine with a street value of roughly $4.7 billion in the fiscal year that ended September 30. The previous Coast Guard record for cocaine seizures, set two years ago, was 303,000 pounds. In fiscal 2006, the Coast Guard seized 287,000 pounds of cocaine. By comparison, the street value of the drugs seized or removed last year by the Coast Guard equals roughly half the agency’s total annual budget, said Commandant Adm. Thad Allen.
I tend to think that officials wildly overestimate the street value of seized contraband, but that’s still an amazing statistic.
