The crew of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter James offloaded approximately 48,000 pounds of illicit narcotics with a street value estimated to be worth more than $509 million at Port Everglades, Florida on Thursday. The offloaded contraband, a result of thirteen offshore interdictions in international waters, will involve 11 separate criminal cases.
At a Wednesday morning press dockside conference, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters, “We believe two cartels, CJNG and Sinaloa were heavily tied to these shipments, this is a major blow to their financial operations and their efforts to distribute drugs throughout our country.” Bondi was joined at the press conference by FBI Director Kash Patel, and Coast Guard Vice Admiral Nathan Moore.
The seizures involved aircraft, unmanned aerial drones, and two U.S. Coast Guard cutters, the cutter James and the cutter Mohawk. The thwarted narcotics smuggling ventures took place off the coasts of Ecuador, Peru, and the Galapagos Islands. Bondi says the prosecution cases for defendants suspected of smuggling narcotics in international waters will take place in the Florida federal court system.
Bondi noted the multi-law enforcement operation was an example of the Department of Justice working alongside other agencies to strike at the heart of the drug traffickers saying, ‘It’s an example of a prosecutor led, intelligence driven, approach to stopping these criminal enterprises in their tracks.”
During Wednesday’s press conference, FBI Director Kash Patel noted the connection of the shipment to the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa Cartels to terrorist actions since both cartels have been formally designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Emphasizing this, Patel told reporters “There is no lethal force on planet Earth that is responsible for an overdose death of an American citizen every seven minutes more so than these Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”
Vice Admiral Moore lauded the efforts of the Coast Guard crews saying, “They seized $510 million in illegal drugs, that’s cocaine and marijuana, that was interdicted at sea before it could reach the U.S. border. So, what does that number mean? What does the number beside the dollar sign mean? It means 154 lives saved directly from cocaine-related overdose deaths in this country.”
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Before his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @RandyClarkBBTX.
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