ALAMEDA (KRON) — Dramatic video from the coast guard captures a drug smuggling speedboat cutting across waters of the pacific.
The suspects on board are seen tossing bales of cocaine into the ocean while trying to outrun a coast guard cutter.
Lt. Cmdr. Steven Brickey with the Coast Guard station in Alameda said missions like these help stop the illegal flow of drugs into the U.S.
“These counter narcotics missions are inherently dangerous right and we’re coming up on folks who are trying to evade detection evade capture,” Brickey said.
With support from Customs and Border Protection, the guard gets a view from above the pursuit to lock in on their target.
Brickey said with a high speed chase and capture like this, the adrenaline is especially turned up for responding guardsmen.
“It goes very quickly from a high speed pursuit, to capturing these individuals and then taking control of the vessel.
The coast guard says approximately 2,300 pounds of cocaine were seized from the boat.
This adds to 144 metric tons or $4.2 billion worth of cocaine stopped from flowing into the country so far this year.
“About 80% of all the drug flow comes through this corridor in the Eastern Pacific, so there’s a tremendous amount of drugs there,” Brickey said. “We’re doing our best to surge assets to surge capability down there to combat that.”
Footage of another one of the narcotics missions went viral in June.
The video shows an Alameda-based guardsman jumping onto a moving drug-sub and stopping the alleged smugglers.
The daring mission captivated the country and gave people an opportunity to see the work happening on the frontlines.
Brickey said that’s the goal of releasing videos of these missions.
“We really hope just to inform people how important it is that we are out there doing this,” he said. “And that you know in turn helps us get new ships, get more equipment, get more funding to keep doing this mission and help safeguard American lives.”