Illegal immigrants, drugs found on Catalina Island motorboat

April 19, 2010 | 1:18 pm

Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies seized a large cache of marijuana and detained three Mexican nationals after a flat-bottomed, motorboat ran aground in a remote area of Catalina Island, sheriff's officials said Monday.

A department employee on the island called for backup from the sheriff's Avalon station at 5:45 p.m. Sunday after seeing the 30-foot Ponga with two, 250-horsepower motors and 400 gallons of fuel aboard had become stranded in Cottonwood Cove, a remote area on the southwest side of the island, said Capt. Mike Parker of the sheriff's department.

Deputies said three men claimed they had paid a smuggler to bring them to the United States but found what appeared to be multiple bundles, later identified as a "large quantity of marijuana," Parker said.

"This was discovered because of a very observant sheriff's employee working a remote part of the island," Parker said. "He saw something that looked suspicious. It's not typical to see a boat run aground there. His suspicions were raised, and he thought there was more to the story."

Darkness prevented deputies from loading the marijuana bundles into a department helicopter, Parker said. Aided by the U.S. Coast Guard, deputies guarded the shipment and then began to load the drugs at first light.

It took several hours and two separate flights to load the helicopter and transport the shipment to the mainland.

The three men who told authorities they were being smuggled into the U.S. and were abandoned after the boat ran aground were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

-- Andrew Blankstein

Photos: Cottonwood Cove on Catalina Island on Monday. Credit: KTLA-TV

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