The U.S. Coast Guard seized more than $2.4 million worth of marijuana after spotting a suspicious go‑fast vessel during a routine patrol.
Joint Interagency Task Force South announced on September 3 that the crew of USCG Cutter Escanaba stopped the vessel, recovered 47 bales weighing 2,082 pounds, and detained four individuals.
The task force, a Florida‑based partnership of 13 domestic and 20 international agencies, operates across 42 million square miles to disrupt drug trafficking and dismantle transnational criminal networks.
Drug Trafficking Crackdown
The Caribbean remains a critical transshipment zone for narcotics, according to the 2026 National Drug Control Strategy released in May.
Most shipments are cocaine originating in South America and bound for the United States and Europe, with U.S. territories such as the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico serving as staging points.
Transnational criminal organizations exploit the region’s thousands of islands to conceal operations, using high‑speed “go‑fast” boats, low‑profile vessels, submersibles and semi‑submersibles to move multiton cocaine quantities.
In August, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned a network based in Ecuador that trafficked thousands of kilograms of cocaine monthly from South America to Mexico and onward to the United States.
The sanctions targeted 15 individuals and designated 10 vessels used in the operation as blocked property, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pledged to “relentlessly target the narcoterrorist networks that profit from poisoning Americans.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in March 2025 that roughly 19 percent of Americans used marijuana at least once in 2021.
