Drug submarines are supposed to be the unicorns of the narcoshipment world, rare and hard to detect, but Coast Guard cutters managed to nab three this summer.
The national security cutter Bertholf made a stop in San Diego on Nov. 19 to offload 25 tons of cocaine interdicted in the eastern Pacific Ocean over previous months, including 7.5 tons seized from a self-propelled semi-submersible on Aug. 31, the release said.
It was a jackpot for cutter crews operating in 4th Fleet. The cutter Stratton carried out two of its own drug-sub busts earlier in the summer.
"These interdictions — and the hundreds of millions of dollars, tons of drugs, and many trafficker prosecutions they represent — help disrupt the violent transnational criminal organizations that threaten the security of the U.S. and the entire Western Hemisphere," 11th Coast Guard District commander Rear Adm. Joseph Servidio said in a release.
Bertholf's biggest bust of the haul, out of 11 total, was the sub caught off the coast of Central America. Video taken at the scene show the narcosub's helm and sleeping quarters, the engine room, and another compartment filled with dozens of bales and loose bricks of cocaine.
All told, the cutter offloaded cocaine from 24 interdictions carried out between late July and November by Bertholf and the cutters Valiant, Seneca, Active and Thetis, as well as the Canadian Kingston-class coastal defense vessel Brandon with an embarked Coast Guard law enforcement team, totaling more than $765 million in value, the release said.
The Coast Guard's 4th Fleet patrols are part of an increased presence in cooperation with allied countries in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean as part of the service's Western Hemisphere Strategy.
