Miami Coast Guard Cutter Seizes Five Tons Of Cocaine During October

November 5, 2009 12:52 p.m. EST

Miami Beach, FL (AHN) - Late Thursday morning Coast Guard officials began unloading 5 tons of cocaine worth nearly $127 million. The cocaine was seized by the Coast Guard cutter Valiant at sea in four separate drug smuggling events in the Caribbean Sea in October.

The first seizure took place Oct. 10th when Valiant crew members recovered 39 bales of cocaine off the coast of Panama. On Oct. 20th, two more bales were recovered off the coast of Colombia. On Oct. 25 crew members recovered 76 bales of cocaine off the coast of Panama and detained several suspects. Then on Oct. 29th the crew detained several suspects aboard a speedboat carrying 74 bales of cocaine, weighing about 3,700 pounds, off the coast of Nicaragua.

Law enforcement agencies in Miami will take possession of the drugs once offload and inventory is conducted at the Coast Guard Base Support Unit near Miami Beach. Suspects will be remanded into federal custody.

As a result of the sheer magnitude of the seizure, the Valiant has earned four snowflake shaped cocaine interdiction stickers that will be permanently affixed to the hull of the ship. The stickers representative of a marijuana leaf is a time honored Coast Guard tradition signaling the ship was involved in a successful drug bust.