(WSVN) - Officials are praising an inter-agency taskforce, including the United States Coast Guard and led by the U.S. Southern Command, in their efforts to disrupt the illicit flow of drugs.
Joint Inter-Agency Task Force South officials said it was a banner year for cocaine seizures, with a haul that represents 378 million lethal doses, or enough cocaine to kill every American.
“We’re not going to have a cartel, operating or masquerading as a government, operating in our own hemisphere,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a recent interview.
The effort targets smugglers moving drugs through waters between South and Central America and the Caribbean.
Authorities say they intercepted the equivalent of 42 dump trucks, 16 shipping containers or four football fields, denying cartels more than $11 billion in revenue.
Officials call it the largest seizure in U.S. history, and note it does not include recent operations against Venezuelan traffickers.
In recent months, President Donald Trump has ordered increased military operations in the Caribbean — pledging to step up pressure on cartels and narco-terrorists.
“They killed 300,000 people in our country last year, we’re not gonna let it happen anymore,” said Trump. “All you have to do is look at the cargo, like it’s spattered all over the ocean. Big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place.”
The taskforce operates across 42 million square miles — from the Eastern Pacific to the Western Atlantic, stretching from international waters North of the Antilles to the Southern tip of South America at Cape Horn.
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