ARCTEKJim

ht_cocaine_070321_sp.jpgMarch 21, 2007 ? At nearly 20 tons, it's the largest maritime cocaine bust in U.S. history. The U.S. Coast Guard announced today that it seized 42,845 pounds of the drug from the Gatun, a Panamanian ship. Two of the Coast Guard's cutters approached the ship Sunday after a patrol plane spotted the vessel about 20 miles southwest of the Panamanian coast.

Drug Enforcement Administration administrator Karen Tandy pointed out that usually drug traffickers store their caches in secret compartments or conceal them with other legitimate cargo, but this shipment wasn't exactly hidden.


"They simply loaded these bales of cocaine into cargo containers on the top of the deck of this freighter. They were hiding in plain sight on the main deck."


Charley Diaz captains of one of the Coast Guard ships that closed in on the Gatun. He said the Gatun's crew did not resist but appeared nervous as the Coast Guard approached the crew's vessel. Diaz acknowledged the Panamanian ship was carrying some legal cargo, but that the "bales [of cocaine] were just piled high" in containers on the ship's deck, "almost up to the ceiling," Diaz described. "To think that any one of those containers, any two containers, can hold this much drugs is eye-opening."


Hitting Drug Traffickers 'Where It Hurts'



Tandy estimated the haul of cocaine could have sold on the street for about $600 million. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said, "Through collaboration, we've been able to strengthen our counternarcotics efforts, and to send a strong message to drug traffickers where it hurts ? in their pocket."


Cash, Drugs and Cartels



This bust blows past the old record of 30,109 pounds, seized from a ship in September 2004.


And the Coast Guard raid comes on the heels of a record-breaking cash seizure by the DEA last week. In cooperation with Mexican officials, that agency confiscated $205 million from chemical brokers who had provided Mexican cartels with the supplies to make methamphetamine.


In January, the DEA announced the extradition of 15 suspects tied to four Mexican drug cartels.

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Whatever

Holy crap !!!

ChuckA

Thats the same thing I said HOLY CRAP somebody is pissed off .

ReelCrazySportfishing

Thats A Big Boat!!!!!

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Andy

Just a small tip of the iceberg compared to what gets smuggled in

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H'Islander

Bravo to the boys of the USCG!!!

Dumb crook of the year award: 1984
- Plating line in a CT manufacturing plant where I was working....
Guy on the line across from me has fork truck drop off pallet of plating chemicals packaged in industrial paper sacks. he cuts the top and pours the "compound" into the plating tank...it doesn't "pour right" and it does some weird schit like fizz a little and turns a funky off yellow in the tank - he double checks the label...yup. marked sodium cyanide - only it's a coupla kilos of blow.
So are the other 10 or so sacks on the pallet...

Company screams into action, materials are removed, we are asked to keep it out of the media for fear of losing customers, Coke disappears...

I wanna know what schmuck dope dealer got 20 kilos of sodium cyanide

FMF

I Just Had A 84 Play Boy.....had The Article In There That Cocaine Was Safe, And Non Addictive...anyone Remember That Article?

FMF

:::::::sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiifffffffffffffffff ffffffffff:::::::

What?

Roy

Someboby is going to be more then pissed off. I bet people are going to die. To much money involved.

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