Drug agency officials said that the street value of the 103 bales of marijuana – a total of 4,100 pounds of pot – is in the neighbourhood of 11 million dollars. The Coast Guard said they’d received a report from an aircraft that had spotted a vessel south of Jamaica “with suspicious cargo on deck” that was heading north.
Coast Guard seizes contraband
One of the agency’s newest commissioned ships (2012), a fast response cutter, also known as the Sentinel-class cutter, was sent out to intercept the ship with the suspicious cargo. “This is the largest marijuana bust done by a fast response cutter since they’ve been commissioned,” said U.S. Coast Guard Lt. J.G. Breanna Hite.
Once they pulled alongside the vessel there were no issues boarding her and, the Coast Guard said, it quickly became apparent that it would not be not difficult to locate contraband. Lt. Hite said that it was everywhere on board the seized ship.
“The contraband was easy to find,” she said. “The vessel was completely full of contraband. It was all out in the open and easily accessible.”
She added that the Coast Guard personal did not have any problems taking into custody the men who were on the ship. “We had four people on deck,” she said. “They were compliant and posed no issues.”
The Coast Guard said that Jamaicans and at least one Cuban were among the four men detained. A Channel 4 CBS Fort Lauderdale chopper filmed the suspects coming off the ship in handcuffs at Miami Beach. They were turned over to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.
