A drug lord somewhere is going to be really, really mad.
The Coast Guard Cutter Hamilton reported back to port in Port Everglades, Florida, on August 1 with its haul of over 12,500 pounds of cocaine, along with some marijuana and eight suspected smugglers.
The ship's 67-day patrol had them, the USCGC Alert and the USCGC Venturous stop five vessels suspected of smuggling drugs off the coast of Mexico, Central and South America.
The Hamilton is one of the new Legend-class cutters, also known as the "National Security Class."
Hamilton Executive Officer Commander Eric Helgen praised the Hamilton's crew and said that seeing the offload of the drugs was a reward for them:
Well, today really is the culmination of the crew's effort. From my perspective, this is about the crew's efforts of over the past almost 70 days, of waking in the middle of the night, staying up for days on end, sending teams out into darkness in rough conditions and really the time away from their families and the time they spend on the seas, really, this is the finish line. This is what many of them joined the Coast Guard for and why they do what they do, and they do it without complaints, and they do it without rest and they just keep dedicating themselves to the service and this cutter and really seeing the contraband leave the ship today really brings this all to a full circle.
The U.S. Coast Guard conducts many operations in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean intercepting drugs before they can reach American shores.