The U.S. Coast Guard said it has seized enough drugs in the last month to overdose the entire population of Florida.
On Monday, a Coast Guard cutter unloaded, it claims, enough cocaine to kill 23 million people.
The Coast Guard cutter Hamilton unloaded approximately 61,740 pounds of cocaine and another 14,400 pounds of marijuana at Port Everglades, in Fort Lauderdale, which is approximately 30 miles north of Miami.
The service is calling it the "largest quantity of drugs offloaded in Coast Guard history," it said in a statement. The drugs were valued at a collective $473 million.
The drugs were “enough to fatally overdose the entire population of the state of Florida, underscoring the immense threat posed by transnational drug trafficking to our nation,” according to a statement from Coast Guard Rear Admiral Adam Chamie.
Rather than one major bust, the drugs represent the outcome of 19 separate Coast Guard interdictions made between June 26 and August 18. Three Coast Guard cutters, two Navy warships, a Netherlands warship, Coast Guard helicopters, and Border Patrol and other task force units were involved in the raids.
Most of the boats stopped by the interdiction force were small, speed-focused boats used by traffickers to move illicit goods. The majority of the interdictions occurred in international waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.
In addition to the seized drugs, 34 suspected drug traffickers were also taken into custody during the operation.
The Coast Guard said a drone unit onboard the Hamilton was a critically important tool for spotting the small, fast-moving trafficking boats.
The service released a video claiming that, since Monday, it had seized $2.2 billion worth of drugs.
“These drugs fuel and enable cartels and transnational criminal organizations to produce and traffic illegal fentanyl, threatening the United States,” the Coast Guard said in a statement.
The Trump administration ordered that the Coast Guard be overhauled to focus more on curbing illegal immigration and drug trafficking, bringing it in line with the priorities set for the Department of Homeland Security.
“After decades of underinvestment and severe readiness challenges, the President and Secretary of Homeland Security have directed action to renew the Coast Guard to become a more agile, capable and responsive fighting force,” Coast Guard Admiral Kevin Lunday wrote in a June synopsis of Trump's overhaul.
Lunday was called to Congress to testify about the changes to the Coast Guard, and said that between October and February, the Coast Guard seized more cocaine than it had in all of 2024.
