US Coast Guard offloads illicit drugs interdicted in Caribbean Sea

The Unit­ed States Coast Guard say the crew of its Cut­ter North­land on Wednes­day of­floaded ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2,220 pounds of co­caine and 3,320 pounds of mar­i­jua­na worth an es­ti­mat­ed US$20.1 mil­lion at Coast Guard Base Mi­a­mi Beach.

The US Coast Guard said the seized con­tra­band was the re­sult of four in­ter­dic­tions in the Caribbean Sea by the crews of HM­CS William Hall and HNLMS Fries­land with em­barked Coast Guard law en­force­ment de­tach­ments.

“Stop­ping harm­ful and il­lic­it nar­cotics from reach­ing our shores and en­ter­ing our com­mu­ni­ties is a team ef­fort,” said Com­man­der Bri­an Gis­mervik, Coast Guard Cut­ter North­land’s com­mand­ing of­fi­cer.

“In the dy­nam­ic mar­itime en­vi­ron­ment, it takes the com­bined ef­forts of our joint force DoD (De­part­ment of De­fense), DHS (De­part­ment of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty), and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners to com­bat transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­ga­ni­za­tions,” he added.

The US Coast Guard said de­tect­ing and in­ter­dict­ing il­lic­it drug traf­fick­ers on the high seas in­volves sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­a­gency and in­ter­na­tion­al co­or­di­na­tion.

It said Joint In­ter­a­gency Task Force-South, in Key West, Flori­da, con­ducts the de­tec­tion and mon­i­tor­ing of aer­i­al and mar­itime tran­sit of il­le­gal drugs.

“Once an in­ter­dic­tion be­comes im­mi­nent, the law en­force­ment phase of the op­er­a­tion be­gins, and con­trol of the op­er­a­tion shifts to the US Coast Guard for the in­ter­dic­tion and ap­pre­hen­sion phas­es,” the state­ment said.

“In­ter­dic­tions in the Caribbean Sea are per­formed by mem­bers of the US Coast Guard un­der the au­thor­i­ty and con­trol of the Sev­enth Coast Guard Dis­trict, head­quar­tered in Mi­a­mi,” it added.

MI­A­MI, Jul 3, CMC

CMC/nk/kb/2025