The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Hamilton has offloaded a record-setting 34 tonnes of cocaine at the pier in Port Everglades, a quantity of the drug rarely seen in one place. It is the service’s largest single cocaine offload on record, and the Coast Guard estimated its value at a (much-reduced) price of just $470 million. An overabundance of South American cocaine exports have pushed down prices in export markets, increasing volume and reducing its value at the same time.
USCGC Hamilton offloaded cocaine collected in 19 separate interdictions near Aruba, Haiti, Venezuela, Curacao, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Bonaire, and a variety of high-seas locations in the Eastern Pacific, from Ecuador to Mexico. Six different Coast Guard, U.S.Navy and Royal Netherlands Navy vessels participated in the seizures, but Hamilton played the largest role, conducting 11 interdictions and seizing a record 47,000 pounds of cocaine.
