FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Officials with the U.S. Coast Guard were at Port Everglades on Wednesday to showcase what they said was “more drugs than any Coast Guard cutter has ever seized” in a single deployment.
The nearly 50,000 pounds of cocaine seized at sea by the crew of Coast Guard Cutter Stone was worth more than $360 million, officials said.
US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard joined officials at the announcement.
Authorities said the haul came after 13 different busts.
Adm. Nathan Moore called it a “historic moment.”
“We’re really happy to celebrate it here and to be able to do that here in Port Everglades, which we have great partners here in town and with our district here in Miami that coordinate all this for us and help us execute,” Moore said.
The seizure of bales of cocaine was part of “Operation Pacific Viper,” according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Officials said the surge in forces to the eastern Pacific was launched in early August to stop drugs from reaching American shores.
It comes as the defense department continues what it now calls “Operation Southern Spear,” a massive naval deployment off the coast of Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea, the Trump administration has said, to stop drug trafficking ― notable in its unprecedented use of military strikes against vessels the administration has claimed, without evidence, are carrying drugs.
It’s a tactic that appears not to have been employed during the maritime interdictions that led to the seizure of the bales of cocaine in the eastern Pacific. The Coast Guard falls under DHS, not the Department of Defense.
“We follow Coast Guard training tactics and procedures,” Capt. Anne O’Connell, the commanding officer of the Stone, said. “We used our armed helicopters to stop the vessels. We take presumed smugglers as detainees and then we confiscate the contraband and then they are turned over to their country of origin for prosecution and then we hang on to most of the contraband.”
Local 10 News asked Gabbard what evidence she and the Trump administration have that the War on Drugs should be focused on Venezuela.
She said Venezuela wasn’t the focus on Wednesday, but the cocaine haul.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating cartels as terrorist organizations, creating a pathway for US actions against terror groups Americans may be more familiar with seeing in the Middle East, explained foreign policy analysts.
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