Thread: Spike in cocaine seizures at sea

Spike in cocaine seizures at sea

Coast Guard, Navy ships announce success in E. Pacific, drug offload here

By Jeanette Steele8:55 P.M.APRIL 16, 2015

The US Coast Guard Cutter Boutwell returned to San Diego on Thursday, April 16th, with 28,000 pounds of cocaine seized by US Coast Guard, US Navy and Canadian Navy Forces in the Eastern Pacific worth $424 million. — John Gibbins

In the vast Eastern Pacific, where drugrunners would like to have an easy path to the United States, U.S. Coast Guard and Navy ships have seen a large increase in cocaine seizures over the past six months.

On Thursday in San Diego, the Coast Guard cutter Boutwell offloaded hundreds of bales that contribute to a grand total of 56,000 pounds intercepted between October and March – more than in all of the 2014 fiscal year.

2015 is already the most successful year on record for U.S. counter-drug operations in the Eastern Pacific since 2009.

WHAT DOES 14 TONS OF COCAINE LOOK LIKE?

VIEW GALLERY

What’s going on, on the high seas?

Federal officials cite a handful of factors.

Since September, the Coast Guard has “surged” the number of cutters patrolling the area off Colombia, Peru and Bolivia -- the world’s cocaine-growing region
Also, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency flew a surveillance drone over that area between January and April. That sortie by the so-called Guardian -- a maritime version of the General Atomics-made Predator drone -- built on much shorter outings in 2014 and 2013.

Also, federal officials say the U.S. Attorney’s office in San Diego is working more closely with maritime agencies so they can use information gathered during prosecutions.

And, luck has had a hand.

In March, the San Diego frigate Gary was patrolling off Costa Rica when it came across a small freighter whose crew apparently panicked and threw cocaine bales overboard.

U.S. officials recovered 11,000 lbs – about 5.5 tons – making it the largest single cocaine seizure since 2009.

All told, over six months, actions by U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and Royal Canadian Navy forces netted more than $848 million in cocaine at wholesale prices.

“I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish against these transnational criminal organizations,” said the Coast Guard’s Vice Adm. Charles Michel at a news conference Thursday at San Diego Naval Base.

“Every kilo on the flight deck here is not a kilo that ends up in some neighborhood in Honduras that’s used to corrupt a government official or kill some kid in a drive-by shooting,” said Michel, the Coast Guard’s deputy commandant for operations.

“And it’s one less kilo that shows at the Southwest border just a few miles from here.”

Federal officials don’t want to spill too many details about their strategy.

Michel said they know the “bad guys” watch news coverage.

But, he said, “In the increased patrolling efforts and the techniques we are using downrange, each turn of a propeller on a ship or a plane is much better informed than in the past.”

On the prosecution side, Laura Duffy, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California, said she is partnering with districts in Florida and Puerto Rico to go after all smuggling cases with merit.

“Over the past year, this district has taken a stronger, more active interest in these Eastern Pacific cases,” Duffy said.

“As we see more smugglers taking to the seas … my office has also redoubled our efforts and increased the resources we are adding to this problem.”

One drug policy scholar said it’s possible that U.S. authorities are enjoying the fruits of efforts to topple the heads of major drug-trafficking organizations.

In 2013, the last of four Arellano-Felix brothers was convicted of leading one of Mexico’s most notorious drug cartels.

In February 2014, Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán was arrested.

“We may be seeing some a major disruption here as things change,” said Nathan Jones, a Sam Houston State University assistant professor of security studies.

Jones predicted that if big seizures continue at sea, traffickers will try other tactics – maybe moving smaller loads to minimize risk, or new ways to smuggle across the land border.

“There are a million ways they can adapt to these things,” Jones said, referring to cartels that usually operate in more than one country.

“And when they get starved for profits, they will diversify. More kidnappings, extortion, more ‘taxation’ of the local populace.”

In the larger drug picture in America, cocaine use is dwarfed by marijuana.

Marijuana users number more than 19.8 million in the United States, according to 2013 statistics from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Cocaine was consumed by 1.5 million people that year. The trend for cocaine is downward since 2006, when the count was 2.4 million users.

Marijuana moves into the West Coast largely from the Baja region in Mexico, according to federal officials.

But far away in the Eastern Pacific -- where a U.S. interagency task force participates in an international anti-drug mission called Operation Martillo, or Hammer – cocaine is center stage.

The concept behind the U.S. effort is to catch the cocaine far away from our shores, where it is being shipped in large, uncut bundles and seizures can do damage to a drug network.

San Diego Coast Guard cutters and Navy frigates regularly do three- and four-month patrols of the “drug transit zone” off the western coasts of Ecuador, Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica.

As the Navy retires its last West Coast frigate this summer, it’s an open question how other U.S. warships might be dispatched for this mission.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/...caine-seizure/