Jacksonville customs agents make $97 million cocaine busts, part of $9.5 billion seized this year

Nov 25, 2014, 12:05pm EST

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Jacksonville helped seize almost $180 million worse of cocaine this month, part of an estimated $9.5 billion worth of the drug seized this year.

Last week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Air and Marine agents operating out of Jacksonville led Panamanian authorities to intercept a vessel with 1,300 pounds of cocaine, with an estimated street value of more than $97 million.

The crew were aboard a CBP P-3 aircraft on Nov. 17 when they detected a suspicious vessel about 115 miles southwest of Panama City, Panama, according to a statement. The crew alerted law enforcement, and the suspected smugglers dumped 17 bales into the water in an effort to evade interception, the statement said. Law enforcement recovered the narcotics and detained the suspects.

That bust is not the only one to occur this month.

On Nov. 9, another Jacksonville-based aircrew detected a vessel with more than 1,100 pounds of cocaine: a street value of more than $82.3 million.
While patrolling the Pacific Ocean, the aircrew aboard a P-3 Airborne Early Warning aircraft spotted a high speed vessel moving through an area routinely used by drug smugglers, according to a statement.

U.S. Customs and Border Projection, Office of Air and Marine agents partnered with a P-3 Long Range Tracker coordinated with the U.S. Navy to intercept the vessel.

A U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment Team said it found the cocaine in hidden compartments. The suspected drug smugglers were detained.

Later that day, the crew of the Customs and Border Projection P-3 Long Range Tracker detected another high speed vessel in the Caribbean Sea, but the smugglers dumped a large amount of what is suspected to be narcotics in the ocean before beaching the ship on the Colombian coast, according to the statement.

In the 2014 fiscal year, CBP P-3's operating out of Corpus Christi, Texas and Jacksonville flew more than 5,900 hours for counter narcotic missions, which lead to the seizure or disruption of 126,489 pounds of cocaine. The total street value for that much cocaine is a reported $9.47 billion.

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