Antigua: The United States Coast Guard said on Saturday that it captured a speedboat laden with US $43 million worth of cocaine in the Caribbean Sea, according to a CMC report.
The Coast Guard said it seized 3,532 pounds of the drug, along with four suspected drug smugglers. It did not identify the nationalities of the alleged smugglers.
The Coast Guard hailed the seizure as a major drug bust in its latest collaborative regional effort to block US-bound drug shipments far from American shores, called Operation Martillo, the CMC report said.
The multi-agency campaign teams up with regional law enforcement agencies, as well as with the Defense and Homeland Security departments to track down drug, weapons and cash smugglers in the coastal Caribbean region off Central America.
The CMC report said that in the latest episode, the Coast Guard said an “Interdiction Tactical Squadron” aboard a helicopter off the 270-foot cutter Northland spotted a 35-foot speed boat with bales of the drug on its deck in the Caribbean Sea early on Saturday morning.
The Coast Guard said crewmembers of the Northland, a Portland, Virginia, 270-foot cutter, stopped the so-called “go-fast” with an assist from the Key West based cutter Pea Island, a 110-foot patrol boat.
The Northland’s skipper, Coast Guard Commander Dave Shepardson, said that the operation took place “in less-than perfect weather conditions.
“More importantly, the crew feels proud that they took a large quantity of drugs off the streets,” he said.
The speedboat had no known nationality and was destroyed “as a hazard to navigation,” said Coast Guard spokesman Lieutenant Patrick Montgomery. He said the drugs and suspected smugglers were taken to Tampa, where the Justice Department’s drug-smuggling task force was handling the case prosecution.
The CMC reported that on Thursday, the US Coast Guard said submarine and boat busts in the Caribbean Sea so far this year have yielded billions of United States dollars in cocaine.
During fiscal year 2011, the US Coast Guard said its fleet seized or disrupted more than 148,000 pounds of cocaine, valued at more than US$11.1 billion, according to the CMC report.
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