Coast Guard offloads more than $214 million worth of illegal cocaine in San Diego

The crew of the US Coast Guard Cutter Kimball (WMSL 756) offloaded approximately 18,898 pounds of cocaine, with an estimated value of more than $214.3 million, on Thursday in San Diego.   The Coast Guard Cutter Kimball is one of two legend-class national security cutters homeported in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. 

The offload is a result of six separate suspected drug smuggling vessel interdictions or events off the coasts of Mexico and Central and South America by the Coast Guard Cutter Kimball and Coast Guard Cutter Forward during the months of February through April. 

Multiple US agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security, collaborate in the effort to combat transnational organized crime. The Coast Guard, Navy, Customs and Border Protection, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with allied and international partner agencies, all play a role in counter-narcotic operations.   

The fight against drug cartels in the Eastern Pacific Ocean requires unity of effort in all phases, from detection, monitoring and interdictions to criminal prosecutions by international partners and US Attorneys’ Offices in districts across the nation.

The law enforcement phase of counter-smuggling operations in the Eastern Pacific Ocean is conducted under the authority of the Eleventh Coast Guard District, headquartered in Alameda, California. The interdictions, including the actual boardings, are led and conducted by members of the US Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard continues to increase operations to interdict, seize, and disrupt transshipment of cocaine and other bulk illicit drugs by sea. These drugs fuel and enable cartels and Transnational Criminal Organizations to produce and traffic illegal fentanyl threatening the US.    

The Coast Guard reports that Cutter Kimball’s crew can operate in the most demanding open ocean environments, and the vast approaches of the Southern Pacific, where significant narcotics trafficking occurs.