Media Advisory: Vice president to participate in $569 million cocaine offload in San Diego

U.S. Coast Guard sent this bulletin at 07/11/2019 05:00 AM EDT

united states coast guard 

Media Advisory  

July 11, 2019
U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area
Contact: Coast Guard Pacific Area Public Affairs
(510) 333-6297
(313) 443-7637
stephen.w.brickey@uscg.mil
Pacific Area online newsroom

Vice president to participate in $569 million cocaine offload in San Diego

Screen shot of a Coast Guard Cutter Munro boarding team interdicting a suspected drug smuggling vessel
Screen shot of a Coast Guard Cutter Munro boarding team interdicting a suspected drug smuggling vessel Screen shot of a Coast Guard Cutter Munro boarding team interdicting a suspected drug smuggling vessel
Coast Guard Cutter Munro boarding team interdicts suspected drug smuggling vessel Coast Guard Cutter Munro boarding team interdicts suspected drug smuggling vessel Coast Guard Cutter Munro boarding team interdicts suspected drug smuggling vessel
Coast Guard Cutter Munro boarding team interdicts suspected drug smuggling vessel Coast Guard Cutter Munro boarding team interdicts suspected drug smuggling vessel Coast Guard Cutter Munro boarding team interdicts suspected drug smuggling vessel
Coast Guard Cutter Munro boarding team interdicts suspected drug smuggling vessel Coast Guard Cutter Munro boarding team interdicts suspected drug smuggling vessel Coast Guard Cutter Munro boarding team interdicts suspected drug smuggling vessel

Editors' Note: Click on images to download high resolution version.

Who: Vice President Mike Pence, National Drug Control Policy Director James W. Carroll, Acting Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration Uttam Dhillon; Coast Guard Pacific Area Commander Vice Adm. Linda Fagan

What: Offloading 39,000 pounds of cocaine seized from suspected drug smugglers in the Eastern Pacific

When: 12:30 p.m. Thursday

Where: Naval Air Station North Island, Vice Adm. James B. Stockdale Gate, San Diego, California

Media instructions: Credentialed media who wish to attend the offload must arrive between 5:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. in order to be screened by security. Any media who show up after 9 a.m. may not be allowed on base.

 

ALAMEDA, Calif. – Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to attend a Coast Guard drug offload Thursday in San Diego.

The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Munro will offload more than 39,000 pounds of cocaine and 933 pounds of marijuana worth a combined estimated $569 million, which was seized in international waters in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

The drugs represent 14 separate suspected drug smuggling vessel interdictions and disruptions off the coasts of Mexico, Central and South America by three Coast Guard cutters between May and July 2019.

Pence; James W. Carroll, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy; Uttam Dhillon, acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration; and Vice Adm. Linda Fagan, commander of Coast Guard Pacific Area, are scheduled to visit Munro and give remarks.

Numerous U.S. agencies from the Departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security cooperated in the effort to combat transnational organized crime. The Coast Guard, Navy, Customs and Border Protection, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with allied and international partner agencies, play a role in counter-drug operations. The fight against drug cartels in the Eastern Pacific requires unity of effort in all phases from detection, monitoring and interdictions, to criminal prosecutions by U.S. Attorneys in districts across the nation.

The Coast Guard increased U.S. and allied presence in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Basin, which are known drug transit zones off of Central and South America, as part of its Western Hemisphere Strategy. During at-sea interdictions, a suspect vessel is initially detected and monitored by allied, military or law enforcement personnel coordinated by Joint Interagency Task Force-South based in Key West, Florida. The law enforcement phase of counter-smuggling operations in the Eastern Pacific is conducted under the authority of the 11th Coast Guard District, headquartered in Alameda, California. The interdictions, including the actual boarding, are led and conducted by members of the U.S. Coast Guard.

-USCG-