Record Cocaine Year For Coast Guard

355,000 Pounds Of Powder Seized; Newer, Costlier Smuggling Techniques In Evidence

(AP)  The Coast Guard has reeled in a record 355,000 pounds of cocaine over the past year, results that officials say have forced smugglers to transport their drugs through costlier methods like semi-submersible vessels and liquefied drugs.

Coast Guard officials are set to announce Thursday that they seized cocaine with a street value of roughly $4.7 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. The previous Coast Guard record for cocaine seizures, set two years ago, was 303,000 pounds. In fiscal 2006, the Coast Guard seized 287,000 pounds of cocaine.

By comparison, the street value of the drugs seized or removed last year by the Coast Guard equals roughly half the agency's total annual budget, said Commandant Adm. Thad Allen.

Officials say smugglers are increasingly turning to more difficult means of moving the contraband from South America. Often that involves so-called "go-fast" boats, which travel far out into the Pacific Ocean hoping to avoid detection, before dropping the cargo in Mexico, and from there it is brought into the United States. Colombia supplies 90 percent of America's cocaine, officials estimate.

"We have forced them to adapt to routes that are dangerous and are expensive. Right now we're seeing guys get in go-fasts and running 1,000 miles into the Pacific and rounding the Galapagos Islands to come in," said Coast Guard Commander Bob Watts. "The fact that we're forcing them to do that is causing them angst, it's causing them pain. That's as much of a win to me on the strategy side as getting the dope."

White House drug czar John Walters said the results are further proof that seizures have helped drive up the price of cocaine even as the Coast Guard juggles other responsibilities, like homeland security and maritime safety.

"In the context of many other demands on the Coast Guard, they've stayed at the drug problem," said Walters.

Critics of U.S. anti-drug policy say such price increases are only temporary, and do not reflect any significant new advance in fighting drugs.

"When you're looking at proclamations of success and seizure indicators like this, skepticism about the ultimate impact on the market is always in order," said drug policy expert John Walsh of the Washington Office on Latin America, a group that monitors the impact of U.S. foreign policy on the region. "It may be evidence of stepped up or more efficient enforcement, but at the same time it may be evidence of more cocaine being trafficked."

The new drug seizure numbers also come as the Bush administration prepares its final budget plan to present to Congress, and some lawmakers question whether the agency is stretched too thin. Coast Guard officials say anti-drug work is a key part of their homeland security responsibility.

In the cat-and-mouse games between seafaring smugglers and the Coast Guard, technology plays a key role for both sides.

The "go-fast" boats which take long detours to avoid detection need gas to return, so fuel ships often wait for them at some distant point in the ocean. To defeat that method, Coast Guard authorities seek out the gas boats, board them and use chemicals to neutralize the extra fuel.

Smugglers have been helped greatly by global positioning satellites, which make it far easier for someone without much experience to guide vessels at sea.

Such devices are especially helpful for smugglers piloting large semi-submersible vessels, which carry huge quantities of drugs and are virtually impossible to spot at sea because they ride so low in the water.

"Any idiot can use a GPS," said Watts, adding the submersibles "are not new technology but with GPS and satellite phones, if you can get guys that are gutsy enough to do it, they will."

Another smuggling trick is to liquefy the cocaine, making it harder to detect. When the Coast Guard boards a suspected smuggling vessel, they will conduct chemical tests to determine if gas tanks are actually hiding liquid drugs.

[gunownerdan]

What do you expect when you give drug gangs, drug dealers, and drug cartels a monopoly on billions of dollars in black market profits thanks to prohibition?
Cops say to fight crime and violence, regulation is much better than prohibition.
www.leap.cc
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

[prinzowhales]

Why doesn''t CBSABCNBCPBSCNN talk about the CIA connected planes found in Mexico with loads of cocaine...Perhaps the same reason why the mainstream media tried to discredit the real reporter Gary Webb when he connected the dots in the SAN JOSE MERCURY between LA crack dealers and the CIA...The drug and war cartel''s paper of record THE NEW YORK TIMES and the WASHINGTON POST immediately attacked his series and his pig of an editor came out and attacked his work...Mr. Webb committed suicide....TWO gunshots to the head. Bush41 and Clinton worked together in the Mena, Arkansas drugs for guns rackets with money laundered through the State of Arkansas on to the Chicago banks...

The Anglo-American media continues to keep the lid on the former President Cossiga''s statement that the CIA and Mossad carried out the 9-11 attacks...it came out in the Italian media and the powers have decided that Americans don''t need to know what the world knows about its evil leaders and their allies.

Drugs are illegal because that gives the protected dealers the market. Under the narco-days of the Reagan Adminstration hardly a week went by without a story about a drug bust suspect being released on grounds of "national security".

[ov442]

Since this is such a waste of time, maybe they should sell all the drugs they capture and use the money to buy more and faster CG ships and technology.
Or maybe when they find the Fueling ships at sea they should just board it and man the ship with DEA agents and wait for the suckers to show up.
or how about using satellite technology to track GPS signals at sea.
the gps uses the satellite to tell where its at, so the satellite should be able to tell where the gps that just queried it is at.

[jetranger7]

Well I wish they''d Quit delivering that stuff to the White House, their all Snorting something there at the WHITE House probably in the White Houses Powder Room, next to the Oval Office, somethings going on, cause they all act like their on the stuff !!!!!!!

[watcher269-2009]

This report came out to justify the DEA because another report just stated that the war on Drugs is like the war in Iraq. A waste of money!

[nor-one]

If they managed to catch 355,000 pounds, just imagine how much got through! With the military in Afganistan protecting the opium crops it was a banner year there as well! 6,100 metric tons of the stuff, a 43% increase! Bush knows how to fight a "war" on drugs as well as oil.

[sasi1-2009]

"A record 355,000 pounds of cocaine seized. Nice to see the government enforcing its laws. Meanwhile 355,000 illegal aliens crossed the border last year and the government is looking the other way"

Yeah, and care to bet on how many of those 355,000 illegals were carrying illegal dope? Probably more coming in that way than by sea!

[ontheleft]

A record 355,000 pounds of cocaine seized. Nice to see the government enforcing its laws. Meanwhile 355,000 illegal aliens crossed the border last year and the government is looking the other way.