Coast Guard offloads $350M worth of cocaine, marijuana in Port Everglades
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (FOX 35 ORLANDO) - The U.S. Coast Guard offloaded a massive amount of drugs in Port Everglades on Thursday that were seized in international waters off the coasts of Mexico and Central and South America.
Officials said that the agency offloaded 26,000 pounds of cocaine and 1,500 pounds of marijuana. In video from the U.S. Coast Guard, pallets and pallets stacked with drugs were on the docked ship before being unloaded.
Coast Guard and Royal Canadian Navy ships seized the drugs from vessels suspected of smuggling over the last three months.
Officials say the ships conducted operations targeting transnational criminal organizations as part of a multiagency task force.
Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan praised the crew members for their efforts to keep the drugs out of Americans hands.
“Three-hundred fifty million dollars of street value that’s not going to go to some of the most violent criminals in the world in this hemisphere do let me just say thank you first to the team of Hamilton."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.