Coast
Guard Cutter Stratton crew offloads 34 metric tons of cocaine in San
Diego on Monday, Aug. 10, 2015.. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty
Officer 3rd Class Joel Guzman)
August 10th, 2015
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
The U.S. Coast Guard announced record drug seizure rates
in San Diego Monday as the crew of the Cutter Stratton offloaded more
than 66,000 pounds of cocaine worth $1.01 billion wholesale seized in
the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
The Commandant of the Coast Guard, Adm. Paul Zukunft, announced that
Coast Guard and partner agencies have seized more cocaine in the Eastern
Pacific Ocean in the last 10 months than in fiscal years 2012 through
2014 combined.
U.S. and allied forces operating in the Eastern Pacific
Ocean near Central and South America have seized more than 119,000
pounds of cocaine worth more than $1.8 billion and apprehended more than
215 suspected smugglers. Fiscal year 2015, which runs from Oct. 1 to
Sept. 30, is already the most successful year in U.S. counter drug
operations in the Eastern Pacific since 2009.
“This
is about more than just trying to keep drugs off U.S. streets,” said
Zukunft. “The cultivation, trafficking and distribution of narcotics
fuels violence and instability throughout the Western Hemisphere,
leaving a path of destruction directly to the door step of the U.S. We
must continue to make progress in our effort to combat transnational
organized crime networks to ensure safety and security in our
hemisphere.”
Transnational organized crime groups are vying for control
of illicit trafficking routes and power in numerous Latin American
countries, resulting in increased violence and instability. This has led
to record high homicide rates in Central and South America, as well as
the Caribbean; 8 of the 10 countries with the highest homicide rates in
the world are in this region.
More than half of the unaccompanied
children that crossed the U.S. southern border last year suffered or
faced harm from organized crime groups, qualifying for international
protection. “There
is still work to be done. We can only act on 30 percent of known drug
shipments in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean,” Zukunft said. “We must
increase already hard earned momentum to curb the rising tide of crime,
violence and instability in our hemisphere.”
The more than 66,000 pounds of cocaine is equal to about 33 million
lines of cocaine or 336 million hits of crack, according to DEA
estimates. Illicit drugs remain a serious threat to the health, safety,
security and financial well-being of Americans, costing the U.S. $193
billion annually.
This was the largest known cocaine offload in Coast Guard history
with an estimated street value of more than of $1.01 billion. The drugs
were seized in 23 separate interdictions by U.S. Coast Guard cutters and
Coast Guard law enforcement teams operating from U.S. Navy vessels in
known drug transit zones near Central and South America. As part of the
offload, Coast Guardsmen will turn over 21,000 pounds of cocaine seized
by the crew of Stratton during the interdiction of two different
self-propelled semi-submersibles. Stratton’s July 18 SPSS interdiction
is considered the largest in Coast Guard history. Read More.
Numerous
U.S. agencies from the Departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland
Security are involved in the effort to combat transnational organized
crime including the Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, Customs and Border
Protection, FBI, DEA, ICE, U.S. Attorney’s Offices in California, New
York, Florida and Puerto Rico, and U.S. intelligence agencies. Allied
and international partner agencies play an important role in counter
drug operations.
The fight against transnational organized crime
networks in the Eastern Pacific requires unity of effort in all phases
from intelligence to detection and monitoring to interdiction and to
prosecution. During at-sea interdictions in international waters, a
suspect vessel is initially located and tracked by allied military or
law enforcement aircraft or vessels.
The actual interdictions, including
the boarding, search, seizures and arrests, are led and conducted by
U.S. Coast Guardsmen. The Coast Guard has increased U.S. and allied
presence in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Basin, which are
known drug transit zones off of Central and South America, as part of
its Western Hemisphere Strategy.
The Coast Guard Cutter Stratton is a 418-foot national security cutter on a 116-day deployment. Cutters like Stratton routinely conduct operations from South America to the Arctic where their unmatched combination of range, speed, and ability to operate in extreme weather provides the mission flexibility necessary to conduct counter-narcotics, homeland security, and alien migrant interdiction operations, domestic fisheries protection, search and rescue, and other Coast Guard missions at great distances from shore keeping threats far from the U.S. mainland.