FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The U.S. Coast Guard celebrated a “historic milestone” after crews unloaded over 76,140 pounds of illegal drugs -- most of it cocaine.
The USCG announced it was all part of $2.2 billion in drugs that had been seized so far this year in the eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.
USCG Rear Adm. Adam Chamie described it as “the largest drug offload” in USCG history and the result of a team effort between the Justice and Defense departments.
“Many of the interdicted vessels we are talking about left Venezuela,” Gregory W. Kehoe, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, said while reading a statement on Monday at Port Everglades.
Rear Adm. Charles “Chase” Sargeant, the deputy director of the Joint Interagency Task Force-South, said multi-national air and maritime forces were involved.
Chamie thanked the Netherlands, which has Dutch Caribbean territory that includes Bonaire, an island in the southern Caribbean, near the coast of Venezuela.
“The Dutch remain a steadfast partner to the United States as they battle the cartels right alongside us,” Chamie said.
Kehoe, who U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed as interim in April, described Venezuela as a “haven” for two foreign terrorist organizations plaguing the U.S. with drugs and violence.
“They are a threat to national security on a daily basis,” Kehoe said about the Tren De Aragua, a transnational gang, and the Cártel de Los Soles, a narco-trafficking organization.
The DEA has reported that the cartel, named after the sun-shaped insignias that Venezuelan generals wear, partnered with far-left Marxist–Leninist guerrillas in Colombia that profit from cocaine.
The U.S. has had a reward of up to $50 million for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a cartel leader and a former union leader who became the late Hugo Chávez’s successor in 2013.
Maduro has had the support of the PSUV, or Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, and a list of military partners that includes Russia, China, Iran, Nicaragua, and Cuba.
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