The U.S. Coast Guard had a huge drug bust Friday of 328 kilograms of cocaine and 3,100 pounds of marijuana at the Coast Guard Base in Miami, Fla.
The estimated wholesale value of all the drugs combined comes out to $13.7 million.
The drugs found their way to the States through an interdiction in Operation Martillo, MSNBC reports. Operation Martillo is an international operation focused on patrolling Central American waterways and routes for eliciting drugs, weapons or cash.
This is the only recent drug bust on U.S. soil, but it is not the only drug bust the Coast Guard has seen this summer. Off the coast of St. Lucia Island May 22, crew members aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Bear and Coast Guard Cutter Vigilant recovered 14 bales of cocaine. They had chased down a suspicious go-fast boat near Colombia.
No more than a week later, another go-fast boat near Panama tipped off a Coast Guard helicopter. The helicopter team recovered 62 bales of marijuana. As a result, they took four suspected drug smugglers into custody.
Sherman Lacey, commander of the Vigilant, told MSNBC they care so strongly about drugs getting into the U.S. because “anywhere drugs go, corruption and violence follows.”
“It’s always a much more gratifying thing for the crew when they have the chance to actually catch a vessel to stop it and to come home to their family and friends and show what the last 56 days resulted in,” Lacey said.