Cancel the party: $17M of cocaine confiscated - WFLA-TV Newschannel 8

Cancel the party: $17M of cocaine confiscated

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Photo provided by U. S. Coast Guard Photo provided by U. S. Coast Guard
Photo provided by U. S. Coast Guard Photo provided by U. S. Coast Guard

1,400 pounds of cocaine will never make it to the streets.

The Coast Guard intercepted the load of blow, worth more than $17 million, from a go-fast vessel in the southwest Caribbean Sea, on January 24. The 18 bales of cocaine were offloaded to the Coast Guard's station in Miami Beach, Tuesday.

Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine aircraft located the suspicious vessel with four people aboard. They alerted the Coast Guard, which sent the cutter Mohawk and a helicopter crew from HITS, the Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron out of Jacksonville. When the chopper located the boat, the crew jettisoned the cocaine.

Mohawk crew members recovered the cocaine and brought the smugglers into custody.

"The crew of the Mohawk and their embarked HITRON helicopter crew flawlessly executed another successful at-sea interdiction," said Commander Timothy Cronin, 7th Coast Guard District assistant chief of enforcement. "As part of Operation Martillo, they successfully denied drug smugglers from bringing illegal narcotics into the Central American transshipment route and ultimately prevented these drugs from crossing national borders."

Operation Martillo is an international operation that shares information between agencies and federal departments, to counter illicit trafficking.

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