Coast Guard Seizes 223 Pounds of Cocaine From Boat Headed Towards Long Beach

If you’re a Colombian drug smuggler and your boat breaks down, it’s never a happy ending. After the ship broke down, federal authorities seized 223 pounds of cocaine and arrested two men heading to Long Beach. FOX11 Los Angeles reported..

A Panga-style fishing vessel, an open outboard power fishing vessel commonly used in developing countries, broke down off the coast of Colombia on July 4, but it wasn’t the first time a vessel laden with cocaine had broken down. U.S. pressure on the Colombian government to crack down on the cocaine trade failed miserably. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Colombia’s coke production will increase in 2021, reaching the highest level in the last 20 years of monitoring. Reuters report The area sown with coca plants increased by 43% to 204,000 hectares (500,000 acres).

Needless to say, the two on board didn’t have the American dream of a cocaine-soaked Fourth of July. According to a press release from the U.S. Coast Guard Los Angeles Long Beach Division, they called Good Samaritan en route to Long Beach. Their savior towed a malfunctioning boat, but was snatched. Rescuers (though smugglers probably don’t use that term) didn’t want to cause trouble when they felt the boat was carrying more than people, so they called the Coast Guard and sent Panga boats to the ship. warned that it was suspected of being loaded with drugs. .

Their suspicions were correct.

When the Coast Guard searched the boat, they found 223 pounds of cocaine hidden in a fake area in the bottom of the hull. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents detained two people on board and confiscated the wreckage and the boat.

“This operation exemplifies outstanding interagency collaboration between the U.S. Coast Guard and CBP,” said Lt. Col. Keith Robinson, director of law enforcement for the Los Angeles Long Beach District.

Colombian leftist president Gustavo Petro is not in favor of illegal drug trafficking. But he makes some interesting points about the environmental impact of the war on drugs, something all too many US cannabis growers with their crops burned know. In his first speech at the 2022 General Assembly, Mr Petro said the world’s dependence on money, oil and carbon was destroying Colombia’s rainforests through what he called a “hypocritical” war on drugs. said there is. United Nations report.

“The forests they should protect are being destroyed at the same time. To destroy the coca plants, they are throwing poisons like glyphosate that drips into our water and arresting and imprisoning growers,” he said. rice field. “Ladies and gentlemen, while you are at war and playing, the jungle is burning. The backbone of the world’s climate, the jungle, disappears over its lifetime. The large sponges that absorb carbon dioxide on earth evaporate. The jungle is our savior, but in my country it is seen as an enemy to be defeated, a weed to be eradicated,” Petro continued.

Instead of blaming the plant, Petro proposes increasing social funding for coca plant producing areas, while focusing on gang leadership to expand voluntary crop replacement programs and regulate drugs. bottom. He argues that the climate impacts of the world’s dependence on oil and the failed drug war are causing more deaths than drugs themselves.

“Which is more harmful to mankind, cocaine, coal, or oil? . speech.

Petro’s allegations are understandable, given that the drug war fueled the chaos of Colombia’s civil war, and that there are reports to prove it. The inquiry was conducted by a commission established as part of a 2016 peace agreement with left-wing rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). The deal ended a 50-year civil war and found that “the consolidation of U.S. and Colombian interests led to the creation of the Columbia Plan, a multi-billion dollar military aid program that began in 2000.” -Insurgency, anti-terrorist and anti-drug programs with the fight against drug terrorism. ” Guardian report.

While blaming the United States for funding the Colombian army during the war, the report also revealed that “significant changes in drug policy” were needed.

And meanwhile, back home in the United States, cocaine is still only a Schedule II drug, and cannabis remains a Schedule I drug.