Media Advisory

July 14, 2019 U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area Contact: Coast Guard Pacific Area Public Affairs (510) 333-6297 stephen.w.brickey@uscg.mil Pacific Area online newsroom

Media Advisory: Alameda, California-based National Security Cutter to return home following offload of $569 million cocaine in San Diego

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

Who: U. S. Coast Guard Cutter Munro (WMSL 755) Commanding Officer Capt. James Estramonte and crew

What: To return home following a 98-day counter-narcotics patrol

When: 9 a.m. Monday

Where: Coast Guard Island, Alameda, California

*Media wishing to attend should arrive by 8:30 a.m. and bring media credentials, a valid driver’s license and proof of insurance. Please email Stephen Brickey at stephen.w.brickey@uscg.mil or call 313-443-7637 to RSVP. 

ALAMEDA, Calif. — An Alameda-based National Security Cutter is scheduled to return home Monday following a 98-day counter-narcotics patrol to the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

 

The crew of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Munro (WMSL 755) is scheduled to return to the cutter's homeport of Alameda after offloading more than 39,000 pounds of cocaine and 933 pounds of marijuana in San Diego Thursday worth a combined estimated $569 million. The drugs were seized in international waters in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

 

The drugs offloaded Thursday 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. This was Munro’s first deployment to the region.

 

Vice President Mike Pence spent time aboard Munro Thursday and spoke to the crew prior to the offload.

 

“Let me commend you especially for your new deployment to the Eastern Pacific corridor,” said Pence. “Even though this is a new area of deployment for this cutter, you’ve already proven yourselves more than up to the task... fourteen operations went into this offload, and one of them was of a self-propelled, semi-submersible vessel (SPSS), which resulted in the largest Coast Guard removal in four years. The Coast Guard is seizing illegal drugs at a faster rate than ever before. And you all have been at the tip of the spear, making that happen.”

 

Munro interdicted the SPSS on June 18th, in international waters west of South America. It was carrying over 17,000 pounds of cocaine. So far in fiscal year 2019, the Coast Guard has interdicted over 143 metric tons of cocaine to date, worth over $4.2 billion. 

 

These drugs are smuggled by international cartels, said Vice Adm. Linda Fagan, commander Pacific Area. Cartel activity, she said whose actions “left unchecked, fuels violence and instability that corrodes our hemisphere’s social and economic fabric, and directly contributes to historically high drug-related deaths in neighborhoods across North America.”

 

While Munro, a national security cutter, was commissioned in 2017, 70% of the Coast Guard’s offshore presence is the service’s aging fleet of medium endurance cutters, many of which are over 50 years old.

 

“Our Coast Guard deserves better,” said Pence. “And that’s why we are committed to fully funding our Coast Guard, including replacing old ships with new ones, just like the Cutter Munro.”

 

-USCG-