Thread: AG Sessions in San Diego to announce record-breaking drug seizures

AG Sessions in San Diego to announce record-breaking drug seizures

POSTED 9:20 AM, SEPTEMBER 20, 2017, BY CITY NEWS SERVICE, UPDATED AT 10:57AM, SEPTEMBER 20, 2017

SAN DIEGO — U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions planned to observe Coast Guard officials Wednesday in San Diego as they offloaded more than 50,000 pounds of cocaine and heroin seized from seafaring drug traffickers since the beginning of August.

Coast Guard officials said that with the drugs that will be offloaded Wednesday — worth nearly $680 million — the agency has now seized more than 455,000 pounds of drugs in fiscal year 2017, breaking the previous record of 443,000 pounds seized in fiscal year 2016.

This year’s record-breaking haul was worth an estimated $6.1 billion.

“By preventing overdoses and stopping new addictions before they start, enforcing our drug laws saves lives,” Sessions said in a statement. “I commend every service member who has helped us in our mission to keep the American people safe, and I thank them for this indispensable contribution to public safety.”

The drugs will be offloaded beginning at 9 a.m. Wednesday at the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal. The illicit cargo was seized in 25 separate operations conducted by four Coast Guard cutters based in California, South Carolina, Virginia and Oregon, plus the Navy’s USS Chafee, based in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

“These drugs represent the scale of the threat transnational organized crime poses to our nation and to all peaceful nations of the Western Hemisphere,” Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft said. The Coast Guard and Justice Department, along with interagency partners, are determined to commit our efforts to detect, interdict, investigate and prosecute the entirety of these criminal networks and end the drug fueled instability and violence in the region.”

Coast Guard officials said they’ve also arrested more than 600 suspected drug traffickers during the fiscal year that’s set to end at the end of this month, with information from the lower-level traffickers often leading to arrests of higher-ups in the organizations.

“From 2002 to 2011, information obtained from suspects apprehended by the Coast Guard contributed to the arrest and extradition of more than 75 percent of drug kingpins,” the agency said.

The Coast Guard and its partners are still processing all drug removals, but a preliminary total for fiscal year 2017 stands at 455,034 pounds of drugs seized, the agency said. A final, official tally will be released early next month.

http://fox5sandiego.com/2017/09/20/a...drug-seizures/

Seize these boats and sell them off...put the money in the WALL fund

Originally Posted by Beezer

Seize these boats and sell them off...put the money in the WALL fund

The Navy, Coast Guard, Border Patrol, I.C.E., city,county state and federal law enforcement have for years seized cars, trucks, boats, ships, planes, houses, businesses, etc. used in drug smuggling cases and sell them.
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Can the Coast Guard Seize a Vessel in International Waters?

MAY 15 2001 5:30 PM

The U.S. Coast Guard just made the largest cocaine seizure in maritime history, more than 26,000 pounds, when it intercepted a trawler registered to Belize 1,500 miles south of San Diego. Why does the United States have the authority to seize a foreign ship that is in international waters?

Because it was full of cocaine. Since the early '80s, the Coast Guard, which is a division of the Department of Transportation and the primary maritime law enforcement agency of the United States, has been engaged in missions specifically to intercept drug smugglers on coastal waters. Under federal law, the Coast Guard's mandate includes arresting traffickers even if they are on the high seas--that is, far outside any country's territorial boundaries. Toward this effort the United States has cooperative agreements with many other nations to intercept drug activity. And several U.S. federal agencies, including the Department of Defense and the Customs Service, are charged with monitoring possible drug trafficking far outside our borders.

In this case, the trawler SvesdaMaru raised suspicions of a customs' plane when it appeared to be a fishing vessel that lacked operable fishing equipment. A Navy frigate was then sent to investigate. Because Defense personnel are prohibited from directly engaging in law enforcement activities, the ship had on it a Coast Guard law enforcement detachment.

When a suspicious vessel is identified at sea, the Coast Guard notifies the State Department, which then gets permission from the vessel's flag nation for the Coast Guard to board. (In the rare instances when permission is denied, the Coast Guard will generally monitor the vessel as it approaches U.S. territory.) In this case, the Coast Guard boarded the SvesdaMaru and spent five days searching for drugs, which they eventually discovered in the space below the fishing holds. The trawler was brought to San Diego and the Russian and Ukrainian crew was jailed on drug smuggling charges.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...al_waters.html

GOOD TO KNOW

Video shows narcotics submarine detection, suspect arrest off California coast

USCG offloads $350 million worth of cocaine and heroin in Alameda, CA.