U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations (AMO) announced on Thursday that its agents were able to intercept a semi-submersible vehicle in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, leading to the arrest of four people and the disruption of more than 12,800 pounds of cocaine.
The cocaine had an estimated street value of approximately $193 million.
The crew of a P-3 Long Range Tracker managed to detect the self-propelled semi-submersible while conducting counter-narcotics operations with Joint Interagency Task Force South.
“This type of cooperation and teamwork produces these kinds of results where suspects are arrested and narcotics prevented from reaching U.S. shores,” John Wassong, director at the National Air Security Operations Center – Corpus Christi, said. “Our crews will continue to take every opportunity to disrupt this type of transnational criminal activity.”
The task force then coordinated an interdiction of the vessel with a U.S. Coast Guard vessel in the area while the AMO crew maintained constant visual surveillance on the interdiction of the semi-submersible.
AMO crews patrol a 42 million-square-mile area that includes more than 41 nations, as well as the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.
AMO’s aircrews contributed to 198 seizure, disruption, or interdiction events in the transit zone, resulting in the interdiction of approximately 213,000 pounds of cocaine, in fiscal year 2015.