U.S. Coast Guard offloads $63 million of cocaine 2 days after shootout at sea sinks suspected drug smuggling boat

The U.S. Coast Guard said it unloaded more than 4,800 pounds of cocaine worth more than $63 million at a Florida port on Thursday — two days after authorities said Coast Guard officers shot and sank a speedboat suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea.

The cocaine unloaded on Thursday was the result of two operations off the coast of Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, the Coast Guard said in a statement. post on social media. The operation was conducted by a Royal Dutch Navy patrol boat, which had on board a Coast Guard law enforcement detachment and a tactical helicopter interdiction squad.

The announcement of the cocaine seizures came just two days after authorities said the same Dutch navy ship and the same U.S. Coast Guard agents in the Caribbean Sea “identified a vessel suspected of smuggling narcotics in international waters.” Employees said in a press release Thursday that the suspected drug smuggling vessel, a speedboat, failed to stop Tuesday morning when flagged down and instead headed straight toward the Dutch patrol boat.

Dutch Navy officers and U.S. Coast Guard members aboard the patrol boat fired at the speedboat “in self-defense and defense of others in response to the life-threatening situation,” officials said. The speedboat caught fire and sank, and three suspected smugglers fell overboard and disappeared into the water, the Coast Guard said.

The U.S. Coast Guard, Royal Dutch Navy and Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard suspended search efforts for the three suspects on Tuesday night, officials said. There were no reports of injuries to Dutch or US officials.

“The Coast Guard is America’s premier maritime law enforcement agency, and our crews work hard to safely bring suspected smugglers to face federal prosecution in the United States for alleged crimes,” said Lt. Cmdr. John W. Beal said in a statement Thursday.

The cocaine seizure and shooting in the Caribbean Sea comes about a week after a separate Coast Guard crew unloaded $468 million worth of cocaine in San Diego. This capture was the result of eight separate operations off the coasts of Mexico and Central and South America.

International drug traffickers routinely use different types of boats to transport narcotics. In May, Italian police announced the seizure of a remote controlled submarine probably intended to transport drugs as part of an international drug trafficking network. Also last month, the French navy said it had seized 2.4 tons of cocaine on a Venezuelan fishing boat about 1,500 kilometers northeast of the Caribbean island of Martinique.

In March, authorities announced a massive seizure of cocaine shipments in the Caribbean Sea, off Colombia, after military ships and planes chased a speedboat holding almost four tons of the drug.

Earlier that month, a British warship and an American patrol plane chased a speedboat as his crew attempted to flee and dump their drug cargo into the water near the U.S. Virgin Islands. British sailors and a U.S. Coast Guard team recovered about 6,000 pounds of cocaine and other drugs, officials said.

Much bigger semi-submersibles, which cannot be fully submerged, are popular with international drug traffickers as they can often escape detection by authorities. So-called “narco-subs” are sometimes seized in Colombian waters bound for the United States, Central America and Europe.