A blow to the cocaine industry
Alameda event marks what officials call largest maritime haul in history
By Peter Hegarty, MEDIANEWS STAFF
Article Launched: 04/24/2007 02:37:33 AM PDT
Click photo to enlargePetty Officer 3rd class, Danielle Desvergers, counts the bails of cocaine being stacked outside...«12345»ALAMEDA — Saying the seizure was the largest ever in maritime history, more than 20 tons of cocaine taken from a Panamanian freighter was offloaded and put briefly on display in Alameda on Monday by Coast Guard officials.
Crewmembers from the cutter Sherman, who discovered the contraband March 17 while patrolling about 20 miles off the coast of Panama, stacked the 765 plastic bags containing the substance on the dock at Alameda's Coast Guard Island as armed agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration looked on.
The 42,845 pounds of cocaine could fetch an estimated $300 million on the street, authorities said.
Along with seizing the cocaine, the Coast Guard took into custody 14 Panamanian and Mexican crew members from aboard the freighter Gatun, and the men are now awaiting prosecution by American authorities. "About halfway through counting the bags we knew we must be close to the record in terms of seizures," said Petty Officer 1st Class Michael Aguilera, who led the heavily armed Coast Guard boarding party aboard the Gatun.
The cocaine was discovered in two of the 12 large cargo containers lashed to the ship's deck, Aguilera said.
Initially, the boarding party was not sure how much cocaine was in the containers because the men could open the doors only about 8 inches, Aguilera said.
But Lt. j.g. Clifton Harrison was able to squeeze in with a digital camera.
"He said, 'It's big,' and started chuckling," Aguilera said.
Among those on hand for the offloading at Berth 2 were Rear Adm. Jody Breckenridge, who commands the 11th Coast Guard District, and Capt. Charlie Diaz, who commands the Sherman.
"It's heroic business and it happens every day," Diaz said about the seizure. "Not just on this cutter but on cutters throughout the nation."
In addition to seizing the cocaine from the Gatun, the Sherman's crew seized narcotics from two other vessels during the 101-day patrol and rescued an American man who had fallen from his sailing boat off the Mexican coast.
The Sherman, a 378-foot cutter launched in 1968 and stationed at Alameda since 1979, has set records before. Its crew found 82 tons of marijuana aboard a Panamanian freighter in October 1976, which was then the largest drug seizure on record.
The Coast Guard's largest cocaine seizures before the discovery aboard the Gatun were the 26,397 pounds from the Cambodian-flagged Svesda Maru on May 1, 2001, and the 30,109 pounds from the unflagged Lina Maria on Sept. 17, 2004.
Breckenridge said information from the DEA led the Sherman to the Gatun. "They had intelligence that allowed us to target the vessel and to follow through with the seizure," she said.
The San Diego-based cutter Hamilton also took part in the seizure of the cocaine from the Gatun.
Uttam Dhillon, the director of counter-narcotics enforcement for Department of Homeland Security and a federal prosecutor in the 1990s, was among the officials watching the Sherman crew offload the seized contraband.
"I never prosecuted, or dreamed of prosecuting, a 20-ton cocaine case," Dhillon said.
Reach Peter Hegarty at (510) 748-1654.
