Fort Lauderdale, FL – The U.S. Coast Guard brought more than $63 million worth of illegal drugs to South Florida after completing a series of maritime interdiction operations targeting international drug trafficking routes.<\/p>\n
The offload took place Friday at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, where Coast Guard crews unloaded approximately 4,600 pounds of cocaine and more than 5,500 pounds of marijuana seized during several recent missions in the eastern Pacific Ocean. <\/p>\n
Officials estimated the combined street value of the narcotics at more than $63 million.<\/p>\n
According to the Coast Guard, the drugs were intercepted during multiple operations involving cutters, aircraft and law enforcement partners working to detect and stop suspected smuggling vessels operating in international waters. <\/p>\n
The interdictions were coordinated through Joint Interagency Task Force South, which works with U.S. military, federal agencies and international governments to combat maritime drug trafficking throughout the region.<\/p>\n
Officials said removing large quantities of illegal narcotics before they reach consumer markets disrupts transnational criminal organizations that rely on maritime smuggling routes to transport drugs into North America and other destinations.<\/p>\n
The Coast Guard routinely conducts counterdrug patrols in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, where crews work alongside partner agencies to identify, monitor and intercept suspected trafficking operations. <\/p>\n
Authorities said intelligence sharing and international cooperation remain key components of those missions.<\/p>\n
Following the offload at Port Everglades, the seized cocaine and marijuana will be processed as evidence before being destroyed in accordance with federal procedures. <\/p>\n
Coast Guard officials credited the successful operation to the coordinated efforts of service members, air crews and partner agencies committed to reducing the flow of illegal drugs through maritime trafficking corridors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fort Lauderdale, FL – The U.S. Coast Guard brought more than $63 million worth of illegal drugs to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[25783,1993,127402,124657,5558,249,251,250,5892,133836,124368,2974,124659,124661,124660,42468],"class_list":["post-323811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-author","tag-coast-guard","tag-coming-soon-featured-widget","tag-coming-soon-include-featured-widget","tag-drugs","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-headline","tag-joint-interagency-task-force-south","tag-pacific-ocean","tag-port-everglades","tag-seo-title","tag-slug","tag-thumbnail","tag-title"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323811","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=323811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}