Seagoing Sting Nets 22 Tons of Marijuana
Coast Guard and Customs officers have seized 22 tons of Thai marijuana from a freighter in the Pacific and from local distributors victimized by a seagoing government sting operation, authorities said Wednesday.
The haul, with a wholesale value estimated at $56 million, was one of the largest in West Coast history, said U.S. Atty. Joseph Russoniello.
Board ‘Mother Ship’
Twenty-one people of a variety of nationalities have been arrested. Eight of them were captured on a Panama-flagged “mother ship” boarded Feb. 19 by the Coast Guard 900 miles southeast of Hawaii. Thirteen others were arrested in the Bay Area. Most will face charges of conspiracy to distribute marijuana, punishable by a prison term of at least 10 years, Russoniello said.
“This is evidence of a new strategy, to take the war on drugs, if you will, offshore,” said Joseph Krueger, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration office in San Francisco.
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