The U.S. Coast Guard announced its cutter Hamilton made its largest-ever drug seizure recently.
On Monday, the ship offloaded more than 76,000 pounds of illegal drugs at Port Everglades Florida, part of Operation Pacific Viper. The seizure is the largest in the organization’s history in a single operation, officials said. The offload included an estimated 61, 740 pounds of cocaine and 14,400 pounds of marijuana.
The seizure is the first major offload of Operation Pacific Viper, a partnership between the Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy placing forces in the Eastern Pacific to cut off drugs and human smuggling. The Coast Guard said it has conducted 19 interdictions in international water of the Eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.
“The Coast Guard continues leading U.S. efforts to control, secure, and defend the U.S. border and maritime approaches,” Admiral Kevin Lunday, Acting Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard said. “The cutter HAMILTON’s record-breaking offload is the latest demonstration of the success of Operation Pacific Viper, the Coast Guard’s aggressive operations to defeat drug smugglers at sea in the Eastern Pacific Ocean near Central and South America. We are incredibly proud of our crews who are safeguarding our nation. HAMILTON’s success sends a strong signal to the cartels that we own the sea. We will defeat them and protect our communities from the death and devastation from the scourge of illegal drugs.”
Officials said the Hamilton’s crew had been on the ship for more than two months and is part of the Trump Administration’s efforts to combat drug cartels in Latin America. By quantifying a lethal dose of cocaine as being 1.2 grams, officials estimated the amount offloaded Monday was enough to potentially kill 23 million people.
Operation Pacific Viper is part of a wider effort ordered by President Trump to combat foreign drug cartels in Latin America. This operation is still ongoing, and, under the leadership of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the men and women of the Coast Guard will continue deploying overwhelming force against the cartels, cutting off the flow of drugs into the United States and putting an end to the cartel’s reign of terror.