The U.S. Coast Guard seized 4.2 tons of cocaine in the largest maritime bust of the drug in the Atlantic for nearly 20 years.
Authorities seized the drugs from a boat off South America’s northeastern coast, the U.S. Coast Guard said Monday. About 4.2 tons of cocaine, with an estimated street value of US$125million, was confiscated from a fishing boat in international waters off Suriname, said Ricardo Castrodad, a spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard in San Juan.

The boat carrying the cocaine was stopped and searched by authorities February 16 during a joint patrol by the crews of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Joseph Napier and the Coast Guard of Trinidad and Tobago. It was the largest cocaine bust since 1999. Photos provided by the coast guard and US Drug Enforcement Agency show stacks of the white substance piled up after seizure.

The 70-foot long fishing vessel was stopped and searched by authorities February 16 during a joint patrol by the crews of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Joseph Napier and the coast guard of Trinidad and Tobago, Castrodad said. The crew of the Napier, which is based in Port Canaveral, Florida, towed the fishing vessel, the Lady Michelle, to St. Vincent and four men on board from Guyana were taken to the U.S. Virgin Islands to face criminal charges.

The coast guard took the cocaine to Puerto Rico and turned it over to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. ‘As the cocaine flow from South America continues to increase, law enforcement partners in the Eastern Caribbean Region have to increase our collaborative efforts in order to effectively respond to the threat,’ the DEA’s assistant special agent in the Caribbean, James Doby, told Agencia EFE. ‘Such collaborative efforts are currently underway in the Caribbean Corridor Strike Force, where law enforcement partners are collocated every day,’ he said. Last week, U.S. agents confiscated cocaine in during a routine operation in Caguas, Puerto Rico which was estimated to have a street value of US$14mil (DailyMail)