Largest cocaine offload in Florida history
The largest cocaine offload in U.S. Coast Guard history of about 740 pounds of cocaine, enough to kill everyone in Florida, was offloaded, authorities said.
Fox – 35 Orlando
The U.S. Coast Guard offloaded a historic quantity of cocaine, worth hundreds of millions, on Monday, Aug. 25, marking the largest amount of drugs ever offloaded by the agency.
On Aug. 25, the Coast Guard announced in a news release that it captured 76,140 pounds of illicit narcotics valued at approximately $473 million in Port Everglades, a seaport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The drugs included roughly 61,740 pounds of cocaine and 14,400 pounds of marijuana.
“To put this into perspective, the potential 23 million lethal doses of cocaine seized by the U.S. Coast Guard and our partners, are enough to fatally overdose the entire population of the state of Florida,” Rear Adm. Adam Chamie, commander of the Coast Guard’s Southeast District, said in the release.
Chamie noted the feat underscored “the immense threat posed by transnational drug trafficking in our nation.”
The Coast Guard was assisted by the Royal Netherlands Navy ship HNLMS Friesland, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Air and Marine Operations, in addition to other military segments.
The Coast Guard Cutter Hamilton, one of four 418-foot Legend-class national security cutters homeported in Charleston, South Carolina, brought the illegal drugs to port.
“Team Hamilton with our partners, worked incredibly hard the last several months to safeguard the American public from the dangers of illicit narcotics entering the United States,” Capt. John B. McWhite, commanding officer, Hamilton, said in the release.
When did the seizures occur?
The seizures, which occurred between June 26 and Aug. 18, resulted from 19 interdictions in international waters in the Eastern Pacific Coast and the Caribbean Sea, the Coast Guard said. Coast Guard Cutter Hamilton detained 34 suspected drug traffickers and stopped 11 go-fast vessels throughout the interdictions.
Drug seizures deny criminal organizations over half of a billion dollars in revenue, according to the Coast Guard’s release.
Authorities released videos of the seizures showing what occurred during two separate interceptions. In one instance, officials stopped a go-fast vessel approximately 40 miles southwest of Haiti on Friday, Aug. 15. The boat had been detected by a maritime patrol aircraft, and that interdiction resulted in the seizure of more than 1,615 pounds of marijuana.
In another incident, Coast Guard Cutter Hamilton intercepted two go-fast vessels suspected of drug smuggling southeast of the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, on Thursday, June 26. In that instance, officials seized more than 4,475 pounds of cocaine.
About 80% of drugs are interdicted on the high seas, according to the Coast Guard.
Michelle Del Rey is a trending news reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at mdelrey@usatoday.com
