US Coastguard Has Seized $1.8bn Worth Of Cocaine This Year

The US coastguard has seized more cocaine off Latin America’s Pacific coast over the past 10 months than in the previous three years combined as it rebounds from budget cuts and combats smugglers increasingly moving drugs on the high seas, according to officials. The agency has seized 119,000lbs of cocaine worth more than $1.8bn so far this year, Admiral Paul Zukunft said before crews used a crane to move dozens of massive drug bundles off a coastguard vessel in San Diego. Coastguard officials said they could not say whether the increase in seizures signals a spike in cocaine use by Americans.