{"id":261100,"date":"2026-05-06T20:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T20:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/261100\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T20:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T20:33:08","slug":"just-6-miles-off-florida-coast-coast-guard-nabs-1-7-ton-coke-haul-on-fishing-boat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/261100\/","title":{"rendered":"Just 6 miles off Florida coast, Coast Guard nabs 1.7-ton coke haul on fishing boat"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A fishing trip quickly unraveled into one of South Florida<\/a>\u2019s largest cocaine busts when federal agents intercepted a vessel carrying nearly 1.7 metric tons of the drug just miles from Miami<\/a>‘s shoreline.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Justice<\/a> announced on Wednesday that three men from the Dominican Republic<\/a> pleaded guilty in federal court to their roles in the operation, which prosecutors say was designed to flood South Florida with cocaine. Erasme Catalino Paulino Rodriguez, 35; Joseito Diaz De Oleo, 48; and Ober Alexander Villavicencio Jimenez, 36, admitted to conspiring to import a controlled substance after their boat was stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard late last year.<\/p>\n

The bust happened Dec. 2, 2025, about six nautical miles off Government Cut in Miami-Dade County<\/a>. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Coast Guard crews stopped the 65-foot sport-fishing boat Best Bet and escorted it to Coast Guard Station Miami Beach. Once on land, law enforcement officers discovered what they weren\u2019t expecting from a pleasure boat \u2014 1,694 kilograms of cocaine hidden inside secret compartments.<\/p>\n

Court documents show the men had sailed east from Miami to a prearranged drop spot near the Turks and Caicos<\/a>. There, they met a smaller vessel crewed by four other Dominican men. Duffel bags packed with cocaine were transferred boat-to-boat, concealed aboard the Best Bet, and the crew headed back toward Miami. They never made it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Three Dominican men pleaded guilty after federal authorities intercepted their boat just off Miami, uncovering nearly 1.7 metric tons of cocaine hidden on board following a drug pickup near the Turks and Caicos. (US DOJ) <\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a large-scale maritime cocaine smuggling operation aimed at bringing nearly 1.7 metric tons of poison into South Florida,\u201d U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Qui\u00f1ones said in a statement. He added that the volume of drugs would have fueled \u201caddiction, violence, and cartel profits on a massive scale,\u201d calling the guilty pleas a major disruption to a trafficking pipeline.<\/p>\n

See also: SNAP scam suspect accused of diverting $2.8M in benefits meant for Florida families<\/a><\/p>\n

Each man now faces serious prison time. Federal law requires a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years behind bars, and the men could receive sentences of up to life in prison. A federal judge will decide their fate after reviewing sentencing guidelines and other legal factors.<\/p>\n

The case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration<\/a> and Homeland Security Investigations<\/a>, with help from the U.S. Coast Guard<\/a>, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations<\/a>, and the FBI.<\/p>\n

Federal officials say the prosecution is part of the Homeland Security Task Force initiative, a multi-agency effort created to target transnational criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking, gang activity, and human smuggling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A fishing trip quickly unraveled into one of South Florida\u2019s largest cocaine busts when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-261100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261100","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=261100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}