SAN DIEGO (CNS) - A Coast Guard ship returned to its San Diego homeport Thursday carrying a record 14-ton narcotic haul seized from seafaring drug traffickers in recent months.
The 28,000 pounds of cocaine aboard the cutter Boutwell was impounded during 19 interdictions by U.S. and Canadian forces near Central and South America, according to USCG public affairs. The contraband would have been worth in excess of $424 million in street sales, officials said.
The Coast Guard and the navies of the United States and Canada have seized more cocaine in the last six months than in all of fiscal year 2014, authorities told news crews during a briefing at Naval Base San Diego.
Fiscal 2015, which began Oct. 1, is already the most successful year in U.S. counter-narcotics operations in the Eastern Pacific since 2009, officials said.