Two men are in the custody of the Drug Enforcement Agency after Coast Guard officials seized nearly 400 pounds of cocaine from a boat in Puerto Rico.
The crew of a Coast Guard aircraft spotted a suspicious vessel in international waters on Sept. 28. The vessel was steering towards Rincón, a beach town on Puerto Rico's western coast, the agency said in a news release on Wednesday. The Joseph Tezanos, a 154-foot fast response cutter craft ported in San Juan, Puerto Rico, was diverted to intercept the vessel.
The Joseph Tezanos stopped and searched the vessel, officials said, and Coast Guard crew members found 142 "brick-sized packages of suspected contraband" inside the boat.
Those packages tested positive for cocaine, the Coast Guard said, with an estimated value of $4.3 million.
The two men who were aboard the ship were arrested and transferred to the custody of the DEA. Both men are United States citizens, and face federal charges including possession to with intent to distribute a controlled substance aboard a vessel subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, the Coast Guard said. The charges carry a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life in prison.
"I congratulate the United States Coast Guard personnel for this successful interdiction of an international drug smuggling venture," said United States Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow in the news release. "We greatly appreciate the U.S. Coast Guard's unwavering support and dedication to keeping Puerto Rico and our nation safe."
The seizure was made as part of the Caribbean Corridor Strike Force, which brings together task forces from multiple agencies to stop the flow of illicit substances in the region. The DEA, FBI, Coast Guard, Homeland Security, and ICE are all represented in the task force.
It's one of several large caches of cocaine seized by officials in recent months. Federal officials seized $33 million worth of cocaine left on a beach in Puerto Rico in early September. The 3,600 pounds of drugs were left on a beach on the popular tourist island of Vieques in the pre-dawn hours and the people who smuggled the drugs fled the area, officials said.
In August, two men from the Dominican Republic were arrested after they were found aboard a boat carrying more than 660 pounds of cocaine near Puerto Rico. In July, federal agents arrested two U.S. citizens and seized $4.6 million worth of cocaine west of the island.
Puerto Rico is considered a transit point for drugs being smuggled to the U.S. mainland and other countries.
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