Coast Guard Nabs Drug Smuggler and $11 Million Cocaine Shipment

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - U.S. Coast Guard personnel, working with their partners in the Caribbean Border Interagency Group (CBIG), Puerto Rico, under the Caribbean Corridor Initiative, conducted a drug interdiction Tuesday off the west coast of Puerto Rico, arresting a purported drug smuggler and seizing approximately 1,248 pounds of cocaine and less than a pound of marijuana, with a street value of approximately $11 million.

Details of the drug busting interdiction are as follows:

The crew of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection aircraft detected a suspicious vessel Tuesday at approximately 8:30 a.m. traveling towards the west coast of Puerto Rico. The crew of the Customs and Border Protection aircraft contacted the Coast Guard Cutter Key Largo which diverted and intercepted the vessel. This vessel was being operated by Carlos González Méndez, who was the sole occupant inside.

Upon boarding the vessel, the crew of the Key Largo proceeded to conduct a safety inspection. As a result of the inspection, the boarding team observed square brick-like packages in several ice coolers located on the vessel. The bricks were field tested and yielded positive to cocaine. The vessel was transported into the Port of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, where a further search conducted by the crew of the Key Largo alongside Customs and Border Protection officers and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents, revealed that the vessel contained approximately 1,248 pounds of cocaine.

Carlos González Méndez was placed under arrest and transferred to the Metropolitan Detention Center. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Elba Gorbea and Carlos R. Cardona.

The concept of CBIG resulted from a March 2006 collaboration of local Homeland Security components that effectively stemmed the increased flow of traffic across the Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. In July 2006, CBIG was formally created to unify efforts of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Air & Marine (A&M), Office of Field Operations (OFO), and Office of Border Patrol (OBP), the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the United States Attorney ‘ s Office, District of Puerto Rico, in their common goal of securing Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands against illegal maritime traffic and gaining control of our nation’s Caribbean borders.

Coast Guard Cutter Key Largo is 110-foot patrol boat home ported in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

HITRON Snipers Taking On Smugglers

Mens Vogue has a very interesting story about the HITRON snipers. Here’s an excerpt

On a sunny fall day 300 miles off the west coast of Guatemala, Coast Guard pilot Dan Roberts readied for combat from the front seat of his MH-68A Stingray helicopter. In the back of the chopper, gunner Andrew Kramer — 30 years old and tightly wound — loaded his .50-caliber rifle, each bullet as thick and long as a hot dog and strong enough to rip through two inches of steel. Somewhere in the vast Pacific Ocean below, a band of armed smugglers in a camouflaged speedboat was barreling north with 4,000 pounds — $80 million — of cocaine onboard. They were aimed for the coast of Mexico, probably Acapulco, where a brutal and entrepreneurial Mexican cartel would ship the product north to the target market: the nostrils of America.

Roberts — who sports a shaved head and the swagger that comes with 17 years in the military — was on patrol for the Coast Guard’s Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON), an elite team tasked with tracking down and attacking cocaine shipments from South America. Since the Navy cannot legally open fire on civilian boats that refuse to stop, they call in HITRON, the only U.S. military unit authorized to shoot out the boats’ motors — a tactic that spares a bloody mess to explain to the press or foreign governments. Based in Jacksonville, Florida, the helicopters are the military’s safest and most successful tool for stopping the drug boats known as “go-fasts,” and have a territorial range that includes the entire Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
….
Roberts called for a weapons check, then gave the order: “Commence fire.” Kramer slung his other weapon, an M240 machine gun, into position and unleashed a series of 30 shots, each hitting just in front of the bow — no small feat of accuracy given the bouncing target and the high winds swaying the chopper. When the go-fast ignored them, Kramer trained his rifle’s laser-guided sights on the Yamaha engines — the bull’s-eye no bigger than a shoebox. With painstaking care to avoid the fuel tanks, he fired a single shot, burning through the metal housings and killing the first motor. Two shots later and the third and final motor was dead. “The driver just threw his hands up,” said Roberts. “Mission complete, no one was hurt, and the cavalry is on the horizon to take the bad guys into custody. This is a gentleman’s war.”

You should read the full story at Mens Vogue

Coast Guard Confiscates 1,511 Pounds of Cocain, 17 Pounds of Heroin

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - U.S. Coast Guard personnel, working with their partners in the Caribbean Border Interagency Group (CBIG), Puerto Rico made a drug interdiction in the Mona Passage Friday, May 23, 2008, detaining two drug smugglers and seizing approximately 1,511 pounds of cocaine and 17 pounds of heroin (approximately 600 kilos of drugs).

The cases of the two drug smugglers, Josué Alberto Dávila Padró and Jonathan Fonseca Torres, were accepted for prosecution by the United States Attorney’s Office in Puerto Rico.

The crew of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection fixed-wing aircraft located a suspect vessel Friday morning near Mona Island, Puerto Rico, as the vessel was transiting to the west coast of Puerto Rico from the Dominican Republic. Coast Guard Cutter Tornado arrived on scene and interdicted the 35-foot fiberglass vessel, about seven miles southeast of Mona Island. The crew of the Tornado took custody of two Puerto Ricans and initially located and recovered approximately 15 bricks of cocaine hidden within the vessel. They towed the vessel to Mayagüez, Puerto Rico where they turned over the custody of the drugs, the vessel and the smugglers to Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE.

After ICE agents and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers conducted a further inventory search of the interdicted vessel, they located an additional 445 bricks of cocaine and seven bricks of heroin.

The concept of CBIG resulted from a March 2006 collaboration of local Homeland Security components that effectively stemmed the increased flow of traffic across the Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. In July 2006, CBIG was formally created to unify efforts of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Air & Marine (A&M), Office of Field Operations (OFO), and Office of Border Patrol (OBP), the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the United States Attorney ‘ s Office, District of Puerto Rico, in their common goal of securing Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands against illegal maritime traffic and gaining control of our nation’s Caribbean borders.

Coast Guard Cutter Tornado is 179-foot patrol craft home ported in Pascagoula, Miss.

Coast Guard to Begin Training with Armed Helicopters

CLEARWATER, Fla. - As part of an effort to expand homeland-security capabilities, helicopter crews from Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater, Fla., will begin Airborne Use of Force (AUF) training along Florida’s West Coast, from Citrus County to Collier County, beginning April 18.

Providing our aircrews with the AUF capability will enhance our ability to perform our maritime security responsibilities, and therefore, better protect our community and serve our nation.

During this training, helicopter crews will simulate stopping a boat by firing blank rounds. Coast Guard small boats will serve as simulated targets. Coast Guard helicopter crews will also be conducting live-fire training exercises inside designated Department of Defense warning areas offshore.

While every effort will be made to conduct this training away from boating-traffic lanes and populated areas, the training may be visible and audible to boaters.

The safety of the public and our members is of the utmost concern and an integral component of the planning for the training. Coast Guard air crews who conduct the AUF mission are hand-selected, highly-trained individuals specifically chosen for this mission. This training will significantly increase the capabilities of the Coast Guard and enable our crews to better react to threats to maritime security.

The Coast Guard’s AUF capability is used regularly by the counter-drug Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON). Trained gunners on armed helicopters operating from Coast Guard cutters fire disabling rounds into outboard engines with a heavy caliber, shoulder-fired rifles to stop drug smugglers that refuse to comply with warnings to heave-to. The concept has proved extremely successful and effective, paving the way for future Coast Guard AUF operations.

Coast Guard HITRON Crew Returns from Successful Patrol

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Coast Guard Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron Jacksonville will host a media availability today at 5:30 p.m. on one of the first interdictions from the new MH-65C helicopter.

The HITRON crew involved in the pursuit will be available to discuss their experience, and the new MH-65C. The air crew was able to help seize more than 3,200 pounds of cocaine in international waters north of Panama in mid March.

The case began when the HITRON crew was dispatched to stop a suspected go-fast vessel spotted by a patrolling aircraft. The HITRON aircrew used warning shots and disabling fire to try and stop the go-fast. While the smugglers and go-fast eventually evaded capture, the Coast Guard recovered 50 bales of cocaine with an estimated value of $100 million.

HITRON recently began the planned transition from the use of leased, MH-68 Stingray helicopters to the use of Coast Guard MH-65C Dolphin helicopters. The MH-65C provides aircrews upgraded radio capabilities, a heads-up-display to enhance night operations and an Electro-optical Sensor System to enhance detection capabilities.

The 3,200 pounds of cocaine seized by HITRON and the crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Bear were offloaded at Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Thursday at 10 a.m. to federal agents.

The Cutter Bear is a 270-foot Medium Endurance Cutter based in Portsmouth, Va.

Coast Guard Offloading 3,200 Pounds of Cocaine

MIAMI — Crewmembers from the Coast Guard Cutter Bear are scheduled to offload approximately 3,200 pounds of cocaine, seized during a recent law enforcement patrol, at Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., this morning, marking the second interdiction involving the upgraded MH-65C Dolphin helicopter.

The case began when a Coast Guard C-130 Hercules fixed-wing aircrew from Air Station Clearwater, Fla., conducting law-enforcement patrols in the Western Caribbean Sea, sighted a suspicious go-fast vessel March 18. When the smugglers knew they had been detected, the go-fast vessel immediately departed the scene at a high rate of speed.

The Coast Guard Cutter Bear dispatched its embarked MH-65C Dolphin helicopter aircrew from the Coast Guard Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON) in Jacksonville, Fla., to stop the vessel. The Bear also launched one of the cutter’s small boats with a law-enforcement team onboard.

The smugglers aboard the go-fast vessel began dumping bales overboard and continued to flee. The HITRON aircrew used warning shots and disabling fire to try and stop the go-fast. While the smugglers and go-fast eventually evaded capture, the Bear’s boarding team recovered 50 bales of cocaine with an estimated value of $100 million.

“We are proud to have served on the front line of the U.S. Counter Narco-Terrorism efforts over the past two months, and are pleased to have kept more than 3,200 pounds of pure cocaine off the streets of America,” said Cmdr. Raymond W. Pulver, commanding officer of the Cutter Bear. “The opportunity to deploy with the Coast Guard’s new aerial Use-of-Force Helicopter, including its first two interdictions, was also very rewarding.”

The Helicopter Interdiction Squadron in Jacksonville, Fla., recently began the planned transition from from the use of leased, MH-68 Stingray helicopters to the use of Coast Guard MH-65C Dolphin helicopters. The MH-65C provides aircrews upgraded radio capabilities, a heads-up-display to enhance night operations and an Electro-optical Sensor System to enhance detection capabilities.

The efforts of the Bear’s crew are part of the Coast Guard’s counter-drug strategy to reduce the supply of drugs to the U.S. by denying drug traffickers access to maritime routes in the 6 million square mile transit zone. The Coast Guard and its interagency partners have seen significant interdiction successes in the transit zone - Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean - in recent years. During 2007, Coast Guard crews seized a record 4.7 billion worth of cocaine.

Coast Guard Cutter Bear is a 270-foot Medium Endurance Cutter homeported in Portsmouth, Va.

Coast Guard Intercepts Semi-Submersible-video

A Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment intercepts a semi-submersible vessel 375 nautical miles west of the Galapagos Islands on March 1, 2008. Four smugglers were recovered from the sea after the vessel took on water and sank.

Coast Guard Drug Bust

The Pentagon Channel report on the two US Coast Guard cutters that combined to locate and seize 52 million dollars worth of cocaine last week.