FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A 33-year-old man appeared in Fort Lauderdale federal court on Monday after authorities said they caught him as part of a drug bust at sea.
Investigators said Rudalph Hylton was trafficking millions of dollars worth of cocaine and marijuana from Jamaica aboard a 45-foot boat.
According to a federal criminal complaint, the crew of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Richard Etheridge conducted a routine boarding of the Sea Ray vessel, named “Lady B,” in the Atlantic Ocean, about eight nautical miles northeast of Haulover Inlet.
Aboard were Hylton and a man identified as Aldon Delano Brown, authorities said. Both are Jamaican nationals.
According to the complaint, during a seaworthiness inspection, the Coast Guard boarding team found manipulated panels, fresh fiberglass work, and, ultimately, “a hidden compartment under the floor inside the vessel’s cabin compartment that was well concealed with a small opening.”
Under that compartment were 68 bricks of cocaine, totaling more than 70 kilograms ― about 154 pounds ― and 14 bricks of marijuana, totaling about 12 kilograms, roughly 26 pounds.
The complaint doesn’t assign a street value to the drugs, though in 2019, federal authorities estimated that a 70-kilogram cocaine haul in the Bronx, New York, was valued at more than $10 million.
According to the complaint, Hylton told investigators that “he and Brown had taken the vessel to Jamaica from Fort Lauderdale” about a month prior and said that while on the island, “he was offered $100,000 to take the vessel back to Fort Lauderdale, knowing there (were) illegal narcotics that would be hidden on the vessel.”
Hylton was taken into custody on three federal drug trafficking charges and booked into the Broward County jail on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service. Brown was not listed in Broward or federal jail records as of Tuesday morning.
Hylton remained jailed as of Tuesday; he’s scheduled to appear in front of a federal judge for a pre-trial detention hearing next Monday.
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