US Coast Guard seizes US$27 million of cocaine in Caribbean Sea

SOURCE: Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion (CMC)

The Unit­ed States Coast Guard says it has of­floaded about 3,622 pounds of co­caine, val­ued at an es­ti­mat­ed US$27 mil­lion, seized dur­ing two op­er­a­tions in the Caribbean Sea.

The drugs were brought ashore on Wednes­day, along with four peo­ple who were de­tained dur­ing the op­er­a­tions.

The de­tainees were hand­ed over to fed­er­al agents at Port Ever­glades, Flori­da, for fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the Coast Guard said.

“The of­fload is from two in­ter­dic­tions re­sult­ing in the seizure of the il­lic­it nar­cotics and the ap­pre­hen­sion of four de­tainees in the Caribbean Sea,” the agency said. “Fed­er­al agents took cus­tody of the four de­tainees, pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

Lieu­tenant John Coluc­ci, com­mand­ing of­fi­cer of Coast Guard Cut­ter William Trump, said the op­er­a­tions were made pos­si­ble through the com­bined ef­forts of Joint In­ter­a­gency Task Force South, US Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion, the Coast Guard South­east Dis­trict and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners across the Caribbean.

“I’m in­cred­i­bly proud of the crew of CGC William Trump in their abil­i­ty to car­ry out this high-risk mis­sion in a safe, ef­fi­cient and pro­fes­sion­al man­ner,” he added. “Their suc­cess di­rect­ly pre­vent­ed il­lic­it nar­cotics from reach­ing our shores and dis­rupt­ed the op­er­a­tions of transna­tion­al-crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions through­out the West­ern Hemi­sphere.”

The Coast Guard said the op­er­a­tion was part of its on­go­ing ef­forts to stop il­le­gal drugs from reach­ing Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties and dis­rupt the crim­i­nal net­works be­hind the trade. —MI­A­MI (CMC)