By Catarina Demony and Miguel Pereira ALMADA, Portugal, Oct 18 (Reuters) – Portuguese and Spanish authorities have seized 5.2 tonnes of cocaine from a sailboat on the high seas and…
drug smuggling
Indian Port Seizes $2.7B In Taliban Heroin
By Sumit Khanna (Reuters) Indian officials said on Tuesday they had seized nearly three tonnes of heroin originating from Afghanistan worth an estimated 200 billion rupees ($2.72 billion) amid the…
Undercover trucker: Hauling half-ton of pot for feds in sting
On Dec. 1, a truck driver pulling a flatbed trailer presented himself to U.S. border officers at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo, New York, one of the busiest commercial crossings with Canada. He had picked up his load of aluminum panels in Toronto and was delivering it some 450 miles away in Somerset, New Jersey.
At face value, it might have appeared as a typical cross-border run. But something aroused the suspicions of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers after the driver presented his...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/undercover-trucker-half-ton-pot-marijuana-us-customs-sting-canada
Case closed: How drug ring hid $1B worth of coke on a single ship
The U.S. prosecution of crewmembers of the container ship MSC Gayane is finally over. More than two years after a record 20 tons of cocaine worth $1 billion was found aboard the ship when it docked in Philadelphia, eight seafarers have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms. The last defendant, Alexsandar Kavaja, was sentenced Tuesday.
Kavaja’s court docket included a particularly valuable filing: an unsealed government investigation report that paints the most detailed picture yet of how the...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/case-closed-how-drug-ring-hid-20-tons-of-coke-on-a-single-ship
Colombian Navy Seizes Tons Of Cocaine From Semi-Submersible
(Reuters) The Colombian navy said on Wednesday (September 1) it had seized 1.8 tonnes of cocaine being transported onboard a semi-submersible vessel in the south Pacific. The operation prevented the…
Watch: Police Raid Cargo Ship and Find 20 Tons of Hash
Spain’s National Police have intercepted a cargo ship off the coast of the Canary Islands and found some 20 tons of hash stashed away in its cargo holds. Eleven crew…
Drug War At Sea Is Getting BIG
By James Stavridis (Bloomberg Opinion) At a Florida port, the U.S. Coast Guard drops off $1.4 billion worth of cocaine and marijuana seized in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. The haul, the fruit…
Record Haul: USCG Offloads Cocaine and Marijuana Worth More Than $1.4 Billion in Port Everglades
The U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday offloaded approximately 59,700 pounds of cocaine and approximately 1,430 pounds of marijuana worth more than $1.4 billion, marking the largest illegal narcotics offload in…
CBP seizes cocaine hidden in watermelons, peppers headed to Canada
A truck driver hauling watermelons and peppers from the U.S. to Canada could face prosecution after border officers discovered nearly 70 pounds of cocaine hidden in her load of produce, authorities said.
The driver, a Canadian citizen, was stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers conducting outbound operations at the Sweetgrass Port of Entry in Montana, across the border from Coutts, Alberta.
Officers found the cocaine — totaling 69.5 pounds — inside the trailer, concealed in the...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/cbp-seizes-cocaine-hidden-in-watermelons-peppers-headed-to-canada
Two More MSC Gayane Crew Members Sentenced to Prison for Role in Record-Setting Drug Bust
Two former crew members of the MSC Gayane have been sentenced to prison for their roles in a plot to smuggle an estimated $1 billion worth of cocaine through the…