Seattle-based Coast Guard cutter busts sub packed with cocaine

KATU ^ | : Mar 3, 2011 at

[george76]

MORE THAN 335 MILES OFF THE COAST OF COSTA RICA - A boarding team from the Coast Guard Cutter Midgett pulled up alongside the 35-foot-long submarine and tried to hail the crew in both English and Spanish.

...

The Midgett took the four sub crewmembers onboard the cutter. The men told the Coast Guard the vessel was from Colombia - and the purpose of their voyage was to transport cocaine.

The next morning, the Coast Guard boarded the vessel and found 300 bales of what was later determined to be cocaine - 6,000 kilograms in all.

All in a day's work for the cutter Midgett. The cuttter's home port is Seattle but came across the sub while returning from a patrol in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

[Ramius]

With intercepts like this, one would think the war drugs wouldn’t be much of a war at all, but instead a brief, but total beat down.

One would think. I figure this (and my numbers are way obsolete by about twenty years) to be about 300M worth of coke. That's a lot of coke, though, by any measure.

But the brutal truth is that, like when I was in, the USCG catches about 2% of the total cocaine traffic. For the producers it is merely a cost of doing business. Who wouldn't love to be in a business where a 300 million dollar loss was an "acceptable cost" of doing business?

The money is too amazingly big. That's the problem, and that's why it will forever be a losing game.

[Gene Eric]

>> The money is too amazingly big.

And hence, in my jumbled opinion, the reason for an imperfect systematic approach to the problem.

[Jack Black]

Future citizens. I kid you not. Rock solid case that they will be targets if returned to Colombia, thereby making them instant refugees. Just in time to get green-carded and vote for Obama in 2012.

[Ramius]

Not that I have a problem with them busting drug runners on the open seas BUT is there some sort of treaty amongst nations that authorizes this activity by our Coast Guard? If the semi-submersible had chosen to maintain their coarse could the Coasties taken measures to stop them?

Yes, there is. But, at 300+ NM from shore that boat is in International waters. If they're not flying a home port flag they're fair game. If they ARE flying a home port flag, it then depends on the country where the ship is registered. If they're registered in Costa Rica, or Columbia, Nicaragua... and such, the U.S. has treaties with those nations that give the USCG permission to board their vessels at sea, in international waters or for some, even within the territorial water of that country. It varies.

[Ramius]

The money is so outrageous... that it corrupts everyone it touches.

When you can fly into a country with enough cocaine in a briefcase to BUY the Boeing 747 that you flew in on... you’re just never going to stop that.

[ForGod'sSake]

If they're not flying a home port flag they're fair game.

Oh yeah. That hadn't occurred to me. Gotta wonder how many "pirates" or competing drug cartels even, might be lurking around these waters in hopes of doing a little interdiction of their own. What a payday!

[NonValueAdded]

Tonk Memorial Bump

[Gene Eric]

Very sad.

[RegulatorCountry]

They're still a prominent family on the Outer Banks.

The sea's on the rough side out there in good weather. It took more than a little nerve to go out in a storm in a glorified rowboat. That they did, saving many over the years.

"The Board-And-Batten Chicamacomico Life Saving Station was converted to a boathouse when the new shingle style station and its outbuildings were erected in 1911. They remind us today of the daring rescues made off the treacherous shoals and surf of Hatteras Island in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

One such rescue was of the "Strathairly" in 1891. Surfmen from Chicamacomico pulled seven members from heavy seas overcoming dense fog, high winds, and tumultuous surf. In 1898 the surfmen rescued members of the schooner "Fesseden." A year later, with the Lyle gun and the breeches buoy mechanisms, they saved the entire crew of the "Mini Bergen."

In 1918, Captain John Allen Midgett led his men in Chicamacomico's most celebrated event: The "Mirlo" rescue. The surfmen, while endangering their own lives in the fire and turbulent seas, rescued 42 of the British tanker's crew. The British government awarded Gold Lifesaving medals to Captain Midgett and the surfmen. The U.S. Government presented "Grand Crosses of the American Cross of Honor." Only eleven of these have ever been awarded and six belong to the surfmen of Chicamacomico.

It has been more than forty years since the Coast Guard left its watch on the Atlantic waters from this outpost, but the historic deeds of the many brave surfmen, who continuously endangered their own lives to rescue foundering seagoers, live on in the minds and hearts of the survivors and the relatives of both rescuers and the rescued. Many of the recent generations of Outer Banks natives are descended from former surfmen, and many of them are from the Midgett family who brought international acclaim to the Chicamacomico activities under the leadership of Keeper John Allen. Their story must be preserved."

[Sherman Logan]

The problem is the demand, not the supply.

It is a well-proven fact that if there is sufficient demand, a supply will always develop. Attempts to choke off the supply only raise the price and encourage others to enter the business. This is a classic example of market theory as applied to illegal commodities.

The US is the primary party at blame here. We (as a nation) are the main source of demand.

[Venturer]

IMO,those who use drugs in America are just as responsible for the deaths in Mexico as the drug dealers who order the killings.

[Thermalseeker]

That's the problem, and that's why it will forever be a losing game.

Depends on how you define "losing". Consider that the vast majority of Congresscritters are trial lawyers. Domestic drug busts mean LOTS of money for trial lawyers, municipalities, etc. Fines generate money. Seizures of property generate money. Bribes paid to Judges generate money. Seizures of money because it has cocaine residue on it, regardless of whether drugs are also found, bring in millions. Never mind that the Department of the Treasury says that 80% of all $20's, $50's and $100's in circulation have traces of cocaine residue on them. Never mind that no drugs were found. You could be on your way to buy a car with $10,000 cash. If you get stopped in certain areas (Volusia County Florida, St. Marten's Parish, LA as examples) and the cash is discovered, you forfeit.

It's big money, not only for the producers in Columbia, but also for our own gubmint. THAT is why the WOD will never end. It has nothing to do with stopping the flow of drugs into this country......

[jazusamo]

Coasties did themselves proud.

[Ramius]

Those surfmen were some seriously tough dudes. I can’t really wrap my head around the stuff they did. Wood boats. Oars. Surf. Breeches bouys. It’s just bad crazy.

[sionnsar]

Thanks to george76 for the ping.

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[rockrr]

There will be no party at the White Hut tonight.