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Coast Guard Cutter Campbell seizes 6,700 pounds of cocaine By PA1 John Gaffney, PADET Mayport
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A sharp-eyed lookout’s sighting led to the July 6 seizure of 6,700 pounds of cocaine by the CGC Campbell in the southern Caribbean. The 270-foot cutter, based in Kittery, Maine, was patrolling 50 miles off Cayos de Albuquerque, Colombia, when the lookout spotted the Ocean Mistery, a 65-foot Honduran fishing vessel, on the horizon. Officer of the Deck Lt.j.g. Neil White of Monroe, Conn., turned the cutter to an intercept heading and rang up 15 knots to close with the fishing vessel. When the fishing vessel passed off the cutter’s port side, White called for a turn behind it to read the fishing vessel’s homeport off its stern. As the cutter made its turn, crewmembers saw numerous bales floating in the fishing vessel’s wake. “We knew what they were,” White said. White notified the cutter’s operations officer and commanding officer while members of the cutter crew marked the two-mile-long string of bales with “high flier” radar reflectors. The cutter reported the find to the Seventh District Operations Center and requested permission to board the Ocean Mistery while the crew of its inflatable boat began recovering the 100 bales from the water. They tested positive for cocaine. When boarding clearance was received, the Campbell directed the Ocean Mistery to stop and prepare to be boarded. The captain of the Ocean Mistery did not comply, maintaining course and speed. The Campbell pursued the fishing vessel for more than an hour, eventually using warning shots from its .50-caliber machine gun to gain compliance. GM1 Guillermo Velazquez of Tactical Law Enforcement Team South led the boarding team aboard the Ocean Mistery. The drugs had all been dumped before the boarding team arrived, but a search of the vessel yielded significant intelligence. “We noted all of the positions on the GPS and the frequencies on the radios,” Velazquez said. “The captain told us he didn’t have any charts, but we found them.” The boarding team spent 30 hours on the fishing vessel, which was confiscated by the Honduran government, and its five-man crew was taken into custody aboard the cutter. The cocaine and the suspects were turned over to Department of Justice officials during a July 16 stop at Mayport Naval Station, Fla. “This illustrates the value of a Coast Guard presence in deep water,” said Cmdr. Matthew von Ruden, Campbell’s commanding officer. “The Campbell’s crew prevented more than three tons of cocaine, valued at $220 million, from reaching our streets.”
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