A US Coast Guard cutter on Monday unloaded a report haul of unlawful medicine that, if it had made it to the streets, would symbolize round 23 million lethal doses of cocaine, the service stated.
The cutter Hamilton offloaded about 61,740 kilos of cocaine and 14,400 kilos of marijuana at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, round 30 miles north of Miami, in what’s “the largest quantity of drugs offloaded in Coast Guard history,” a Coast Guard statement stated. The whole worth of the seized medicine was put at $473 million.
That’s “enough to fatally overdose the entire population of the state of Florida, underscoring the immense threat posed by transnational drug trafficking to our nation,” Rear Adm. Adam Chamie stated in the assertion.
The seizures had been made in 19 separate interdictions in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea between June 26 and August 18 and concerned three US Coast Guard cutters, two US Navy warships and a Netherlands warship in addition to Coast Guard helicopter models, US Customs and Border Patrol models, and Joint Interagency Task Force models, the assertion stated.
Capt. John B. McWhite, commanding officer of the Hamilton, stated crews aboard the nationwide safety cutter had been liable for seizing “a record 47,000 pounds of cocaine” throughout the interdiction of 11 “go-fast” vessels, speedy boats used by traffickers to transfer the medicine to US markets.
The crew detained 34 suspected drug traffickers, it stated.
The Hamilton’s on-board drone unit was instrumental in recognizing many of the traffickers’ boats, the Coast Guard assertion stated.
Since January, the Coast Guard has seized $2.2 billion of medicine headed to the US, a service video launched Monday stated.
“These drugs fuel and enable cartels and transnational criminal organizations to produce and traffic illegal fentanyl, threatening the United States,” the Coast Guard assertion stated.
President Donald Trump has made the struggle in opposition to fentanyl one of the prime priorities of his administration.
Trump in July signed The Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act, strengthening jail sentences for fentanyl traffickers, which handed each the Senate and the House with bipartisan assist.
The president has claimed the illicit movement of fentanyl is one of the underlying causes for his tariff threats in opposition to Canada, Mexico and China.