16 people caught in suspected smuggling operation off Dana Point jetty

July 30, 2018
By ERIKA I. RITCHIE

Two Harbor Patrol deputies on patrol in Dana Point Harbor last weekend noticed something odd: 11 people, some in life vests, standing on the west jetty with no boat in sight.

The deputies soon discovered that the group, all of them apparently from foreign countries, likely had been smuggled into the harbor and dropped off by a pleasure craft around 10:20 p.m. Saturday July 28, Harbor Patrol Sgt. Isaac Felter said.

“Some had on life vests but there was no boat in sight,” he said Monday. “Some were wet.”

Deputies detained the 11 and notified the Maritime Coordination Center. The center, at the Port of Long Beach, coordinates scores of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies aimed at keeping the waters off California safe from smugglers and other criminals.

The MCC notified other agencies, including the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Customs & Border Protection. The Harbor Patrol also called in their own helicopter, Duke, with which deputies spotted four more people hiding in another spot along the jetty, Felter said.

“We were also able to detain the person who was going to pick them up in a parking lot in Dana Point Harbor, Felter said. Deputies from the Orange County Sheriff Department in Dana Point helped secure the arrest and also impounded the van the man was in.

“We stopped everything,” Felter said.

The Coast Guard also sent two helicopters from Ventura and a cutter from San Diego but no vessel was found.

Recently, the MCC and its partners have focused on pleasure crafts used for smuggling.

“More than likely it was a pleasure craft. If it was a panga, it would have washed up onshore,” Felter said. “On the west jetty it’s easy to pull up seaside because they have shelter.”

The incident is among nearly two dozen reported vessel landings this year along the coast between San Diego to just south of San Francisco, according to data from the MCC. In most cases, drugs were seized or migrants were apprehended.

In May, Harbor Patrol deputies also found life vests crammed into the Dana Point jetty but found no people. In June two panga boats landed at Crystal Cove State Park in two separate incidents. Only in one case, were four people apprehended.

Also, within the last few months, calls from concerned boaters in Dana Point and Newport harbors about illegally docked boats have alerted Harbor Patrol. Officials in those cases found evidence of smuggling activities occurred, including life vests, food and water that could only have been purchased in Mexico.

In Saturday’s incident, the 16 people, including two women, were handed over to Border Patrol, Felter said.

It is unclear if the man found with the van in the Dana Point parking lot was a U.S. citizen, he said.

https://www.ocregister.com/2018/07/3...leasure-craft/