NEWPORT, R.I. — A cutter that calls Naval Station Newport home finished a Caribbean counter-drug patrol by bringing a multi-ton cocaine load ashore in South Florida on Wednesday, according to the Coast Guard.
Crews from the Cutter Tahoma landed roughly 3,622 pounds of cocaine with an estimated street value above $27 million at Port Everglades after two separate boardings at sea.
Four people taken into custody during those stops were handed to federal agents as the case moved into the next stage of investigation.
Tahoma, a 270-foot medium endurance cutter known around Newport as the Mighty T, is assigned to Atlantic Area missions that mix law enforcement with search-and-rescue duty.
Partner ships in the same Caribbean push included the cutters Diligence and William Trump plus the Navy ship Minneapolis-Saint Paul, with a Coast Guard tactical boarding team riding along for the high-risk stops.
Surveillance help came from Royal Netherlands Navy and Customs and Border Protection aircraft, while Joint Interagency Task Force-South and the Coast Guard Southeast District helped stitch the pieces together.
Lt. John Colucci of the William Trump said the crews handled the danger carefully and that keeping the cocaine off U.S. streets was the point of the coordinated work.
Even though the offload pier sits far from Rhode Island, the seizure put a Newport-based cutter at the center of a major Atlantic Area drug case this week.
Coast Guard officials framed the Port Everglades delivery as proof that Atlantic Area cutters based in places like Newport still shape drug cases far from home waters, and that multi-agency teamwork remains the difference between a near miss and a seized load.
Section: More Newport RI crime news
Filed under: Newport RI Public Safety News
