A Coast Guard ship returned this week from an eight-week deployment to international waters off the Pacific coast of Mexico, Central America, and South America with more than $350 million worth of cocaine seized from smugglers trying to move the drugs to the United States.
The Oregon-based Coast Guard Cutter Steadfast arrived back in Astoria, Oreon, Tuesday after unloading in San Diego, Califfornia, 23,000 pounds of cocaine worth $311 million it confiscated from five suspected smuggling boats, the Department of Homeland Security announced Wednesday. The narcotics seizure is the biggest ever made in a single deployment.
The ship also brought back another 3,000 pounds of cocaine worth $39 million from two other operations, including one seizure originally made by Coast Guard Cutter Robert Ward that was given to Steadfast to bring back.
“This was 26,000 pounds of cocaine that will not make it to the main streets of the USA, and it also gives us the opportunity to make sure we can continue to combat transnational criminal organizations who transport this cocaine deep in the Pacific every single day,” Rear Adm. Peter Gautier, the 11th Coast Guard District commander, said in a statement.
The Steadfast was assigned to the Eastern Pacific Ocean, a region it described as a “known drug transit” zone.
The cutter is tipped off by other federal law enforcement agencies monitoring, by air and sea, the vessels moving through that region. The Joint Interagency Task Force-South coordinates with all DHS entities.
Once a suspicious boat is found, Coast Guard staff will go after and interdict it to see what is on board. Among the five vessels it found cocaine being transported on during June and July were three pangas — a fishing boat — and a sailboat.
In one such seizure, the crew found 2,300 pounds of cocaine on a high-speed panga on July 18.
