Record cocaine haul by Coast Guard from Alameda
ALAMEDA -- Three cutters stationed on Coast Guard Island seized more than 30,000 pounds of cocaine as part of a record 120-ton seizure of drugs throughout the past year by the fleet.The Pacific theater of Coast Guard operations -- with units stationed in California, Oregon, Washington and headquartered in Alameda -- hauled in more than 85 tons of all the drugs seized by the U.S. Coast Guard during the fiscal year, ending Sept. 30.
Fleet-wide, the Coast Guard hauled in 240,518 pounds of cocaine worth about $7.7 billion. The previous record of 138,393 pounds was surpassed in May.
The drugs seized by the Alameda-based cutters Sherman, Munro and Boutwell was believed to be a record for ships based in Alameda, a Coast Guard spokesman said.
"Cutter and aircraft crews work with our law enforcement counterparts at home and in the Eastern Pacific closer than ever before to increase the level of information sharing and to decrease the amount of harmful substances that enter the United States," said Vice Admiral Harvey Johnson, commander of the Coast Guard Pacific Area.
In the last two weeks, the Coast Guard has seized more than 56,000 pounds of cocaine in two record-setting busts southwest of the Galapagos Islands.
On Sept. 17, a Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment found more than 30,000 pounds of cocaine aboard a fishing vessel off South America, the largest seizure in Coast Guard history. A week later, a team found nearly
25,000 pounds of cocaine on another fishing vessel, the second largest seizure in the fleet's history.
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