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On Wednesday, crew members of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Stone were lauded for offloading over 45,600 pounds of cocaine at Port Everglades in Florida. The seized drugs were reportedly worth more than $517.5 million in wholesale value and more than $2 billion on the street.
The more than 22 tons of cocaine was seized as a result of 14 interdictions in international waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean. During those interdictions, 35 suspected smugglers were transferred ashore to face federal prosecution. 3,800 pounds of marijuana was also seized.
“You heard it said before that the Coast Guard’s national security cutters are game changers in the counter-drug mission, but they still require a crew of men and women willing to serve on or over the sea, and place themselves in harm’s way,” said Capt. Jonathan Carter, commanding officer of Stone. “I’m incredibly proud of our crew’s performance and their efforts to combat narco-terrorism this deployment. In one exceptional case, the crew interdicted four go-fast vessels in 15 minutes, seizing nearly 11,000 pounds of cocaine that will never be mixed with deadly fentanyl to threaten American lives here at home.”
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Stone and the Coast Guard’s showed in a video how they recently seized and offloaded the over 45,600 pounds of cocaine following the high-stakes drug interdictions.
“Several were tied to the transnational criminal organizations responsible,” the U.S. Coast Guard stated in a press release. “Drug evidence from these cases is linked to cartels recently designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. government, including Sinaloa and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion. These interdictions denied those criminal organizations more than half a billion dollars and provide critical evidence for their total elimination.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi added on Wednesday, “We have saved thousands and thousands of lives as a result of this incredible cooperation.”
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Stone is one of four 418-foot Legend-class national security cutters homeported in Charleston, South Carolina under U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area Command.
In June of 2024, another one of those cutters, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Munro – offloaded nearly 35,000 pounds of cocaine, more than 3,000 pounds of marijuana, and more than 140 pounds of the ketamine-based hallucinogenic party drug “tuci,” which had a combined worth estimated at $500 million in wholesale value and $2 billion in street value.