SAN DIEGO — The U.S. Coast Guard announced Tuesday its seized nearly $470 million worth of cocaine off the coasts of Mexico and Central and South America.
The drugs were seized in eight separate incidents from late February to late March.
Tuesday, 33,000 pounds of pure cocaine was moved off of the Coast Guard Cutter Munro by crane. It was transported to large trucks that hauled the drugs away to the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Onboard the ship there were stacks and stacks of drugs. The cocaine was seized from different vessels.
While wholesale value of the drugs is about $470 million, Rear Admiral Andy Sugimoto said the street value is closer to $2 billion.
"If I was to sell this commodity just as is, that would be $468 million and then the next person takes it, and in order to make a profit off it they would cut it with any number of substances," said Admiral Sugimoto. "It gets stepped on as it goes down all the way to the street so that everybody can make a significant profit."
He said besides cocaine, crews also seized marijuana and a new substance that's out there called Tusi, a drug that includes ketamine. Tusi is a party drug that is sometimes referred to as "pink cocaine."
WATCH RELATED: Coast Guard offloads more than 26,000 pounds of cocaine and marijuana seized in the Eastern Pacific (Sept. 10, 2020)