KEY WEST, Fla. – More than 37 tons of cocaine, with an estimated street value of $2.3 billion, were confiscated during five seizures at sea this fall, the Coast Guard said.
The cocaine, seized between Aug. 21 and Sept. 26, was being hauled off a Navy frigate Friday.
The largest cocaine discovery in the history of Coast Guard’s East Coast operations was made Sept. 17, when a detachment from the frigate the USS Curts found 15 tons of the drug on a fishing vessel about 300 miles west of the Galapagos Islands.
On Sept. 23, a Coast Guard team aboard the USS Crommelin found more than 13 tons of cocaine aboard a fishing vessel some 650 miles southwest of the Galapagos.
August and September seizures brought the total cocaine confiscated by the Coast Guard during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 to a record 240,519 pounds, worth approximately $7.7 billion.
Thirty-one people arrested face prosecution in federal court in Tampa.
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