Border Security

Coastal Border Team Hunts the Sea

August 25, 2010 - 10:07 AM | by: Adam Housley

With ten-foot waves crashing into the rocky shoreline below, much of the dramatic and majestic California coast is no place to land a boat, let alone at night, but drug smugglers and human traffickers are doing just that...and the numbers are alarming.

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With one month left in their fiscal year, apprehensions by a new federal border team and their local law enforcement partners are approaching 800, that's nearly triple just two years ago. Called the Coastal Border Enforcement Team, or CBET, federal agencies quickly established the new group in direct response to the increased maritime threat along the wide-open 114 mile southern coast of the Golden State.

According to the agents, they will never have enough manpower to shut down our waterfront, or coastline to smugglers and that's why they have partnered with state and local authorities to stop this spike in smuggling along the pacific coast. New technology has also helped them with this incredible task, but as one member of CBET says..."you see how hard it is for Coast Guard and rescuers to find people on the open water who want to be found, now imagine what it's like trying to find these small boats who don't want to be seen and are doing it at night."

To combat this increased threat, the CBET team uses night visions goggles and fans out across beaches, bluffs and stakes out all areas from marina's to boat ramps. They work closely passing intelligence between team members, watching for trends and scanning the waters with night vision goggles. These men know, they are the first and the last line of defense and they obviously take their jobs very seriously.

As we ride along this night, the full moon illuminates the vast sea to our west with an eery glow. It makes sense that the smugglers and drug runners would start using the ocean as an increased pathway, especially as our agents gain more control of the land border than ever before, but on this night, the increased light from the moon slows smuggling activity...at least for a short time. We are told, the boats being used to smuggle drugs and people are mainly the ponga style, which are open and use as many as four outboard motors to race across the water border. The boats are small and can head as far as forty miles off shore before making a run for the coast and doing it under the cover of darkness.

We know through intelligence that the bad guys are going as far as 40 miles off coast, refueling and even lying low until the coast is clear. With cell phones and GPS, meeting someone on the shore can happen within minutes of arrival. Despite this new technology, the boat themselves are as primitive as they come. As one agents says, "sometimes the simplest technology is the best and these boats are as simple as they come."

And as our agents gain control of the land border, the battle moves to the sea, where there are no sensors, fencing, or lights and smugglers can land nearly anywhere. The CBET team says they are needed now more than ever before and will work together to meet this growing threat.

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