{"id":157720,"date":"2026-02-16T22:30:39","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T22:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/157720\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T22:30:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T22:30:39","slug":"cocaine-smuggling-yachts-busted-off-fort-lauderdale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/157720\/","title":{"rendered":"Cocaine Smuggling Yachts Busted off Fort Lauderdale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t            <img width=\"1200\" height=\"1600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/632951511_1366332812200235_6080891175026603620_n.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Feb 16, 2026 by Kevin Maher<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news.uscg.mil\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">U.S. Coast Guard<\/a> Station Fort Lauderdale law enforcement boat crew, Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations officers, and Homeland Security Investigations agents seized about 745 pounds of cocaine from two suspected drug smuggling yachts off Port Everglades. The amount of cocaine is worth an estimated $5.6 million.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-triton.com\/2026\/02\/coast-guard-tanker-rescue-3-from-sailing-yacht\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Coast Guard<\/a> is in the business of saving lives, and every kilogram of these drugs kept off our streets represents lives saved,\u201d said Lt. Justin Dadlani, commanding officer, Station Fort Lauderdale. \u201cI couldn\u2019t be more proud of the professionalism of the crew and our continued partnerships with our partners with Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A Station Fort Lauderdale law enforcement boat crew along with CBP OFO K9 unit officers interdicted a suspected drug smuggling vessel in the vicinity of the Fort Lauderdale sea buoy on Monday, Feb. 9. The second vessel was interdicted on Wednesday, seven miles east of Port Everglades.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-id=\"109016\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-109016\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/634046118_1366332902200226_1847216160131546740_n-450x600.jpg\" alt=\"yachts\" width=\"450\" height=\"600\"  \/>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-id=\"109014\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-109014\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/633080664_1366332878866895_3812759192496400937_n-450x600.jpg\" alt=\"yachts\" width=\"450\" height=\"600\"  \/>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>\t            Topics: <\/p>\n<p>\t\t           \t\t\t  \t <a class=\"gofollow\" data-track=\"NjI3LDQsMTA=\" href=\"http:\/\/www.yachtdiver.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/BROWNIES_WebBanners_DKWK_2021_02_300x250-gif_fALL.gif\"\/><\/a>\t\t\t \t          <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb 16, 2026 by Kevin Maher A U.S. Coast Guard Station Fort Lauderdale law enforcement boat crew, Customs&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":{"0":"post-157720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-lauderdale","8":"tag-fort-lauderdale","9":"tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","10":"tag-fort-lauderdale-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}