The US Coast Guard Just Captured A Staggering Amount of Mexican Cartel Cocaine

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A U.S. Coast Guard cutter recently returned to port in Oregon with a massive haul of cocaine seized from cartels and transnational crime groups in the Eastern Pacific.

The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Steadfast was conducting a 50-day counterdrug patrol in the Pacific waters off the coasts of Mexico and Central America, returning to Astoria Dec. 24 with roughly 12,000 pounds of cocaine.

Officials said the seizure carries a street value of more than $180 million wholesale, according to KCPQ.

The Steadfast interdicted five separate boats used for drug running, including one custom built vessel designed specifically to avoid detection.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the hard work and dedication of my crew, and the men and women of the interagency aircrews and support networks ashore,” said Cmdr. Alain Balmaceda, commander of the Steadfast, according to Q13 Fox. “Their teamwork was vital to successfully combating transnational organized crime in drug trafficking zones over the past several months. – READ MORE

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The rapid influx of synthetic opioids into Florida is sparking an emergency warning from federal agents who say the deadly substances are seeping into cocaine supplies.

Officials with the Drug Enforcement Administration in Miami said Friday cocaine cut with fentanyl is becoming a widespread problem throughout the state, particularly in South Florida.

State drug labs are finding both fentanyl, a synthetic opioid roughly 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, and carfentanil, a fentanyl analog roughly 10,000 times more powerful than morphine used largely as an elephant tranquilizer, reports the Sun Sentinel.

More than 180 samples of cocaine from 21 Florida counties analyzed by forensic scientists in the past two years have tested positive for potent opioids.

Miami-Dade by far had the most contaminated cocaine supply, with 69 samples testing positive for opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil.

Roughly 36 people died each month in Miami-Dade county from cocaine related issues in 2016.- READ MORE

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For those who believe the southern border is plenty secure, federal agents in one Texas sector seized more than 1,700 pounds of marijuana, 90 pounds of cocaine and 17 pounds of liquid methamphetamine in just one week. In separate incidents the same Border Patrol sector arrested three international gangsters—including members of the Mexican mafia and the notoriously violent Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)—during the same period. Hundreds of miles to the west, agents in California snatched nearly 842 pounds of narcotics over a weekend, a chunk of it brought in by Mexican citizens with American business and tourist visas.

It has been well documented by federal law enforcement agencies that the majority of illegal drugs in the United States come from Mexico and Mexican traffickers remain the greatest criminal threat to the U.S. Mexican cartels—classified as Transitional Criminal Organizations (TCOs) by the government—have for years smuggled in enormous quantities of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana. In its National Drug Threat Assessment, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) confirmed that Mexican cartels are in a class of their own, that “no other group can challenge them in the near term.” They are sophisticated operations that function like businesses. “These Mexican poly-drug organizations traffic heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana throughout the United States, using established transportation routes and distribution networks,” the DEA report states. “They control drug trafficking across the Southwest Border and are moving to expand their share of US illicit drug markets, particularly heroin markets. National-level gangs and neighborhood gangs continue to form relationships with Mexican TCOs to increase profits for the gangs through drug distribution and transportation, for the enforcement of drug payments, and for protection of drug transportation corridors from use by rival gangs.”

The National Drug Intelligence Center, dismantled by the Obama administration after nearly two decades of operation, published equally alarming figures regarding the Mexican drug crisis. In a detailed report published by Judicial Watch, the now-defunct agency revealed that in 2009 thousands of metric tons of heroin, meth, marijuana and cocaine were smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico and that tens of billions of dollars in drug proceeds flowed back south. At that point, much of the smuggled drugs came through the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation in Arizona, so the problem is spreading like wildfire across the vast and famously porous southern border which spans around 2,000 miles.

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