The Coast Guard offloaded more than 48,000 pounds of illegal drugs valued at $509 million on Wednesday in South Florida, CBS News reported.
The drugs were offloaded at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, where Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel were present, CBS News reported.
Bondi told CBS News that crews used drones, aircraft, and ships to block the traffickers off the coasts of Peru, Ecuador, and the Galapagos Islands, dealing a blow to the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa drug cartels.
"What they did saved countless American lives, countless lives," Bondi said. "It's an example of a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven approach to stopping these criminal enterprises in their tracks."
The drug traffickers were designated foreign terrorist organizations.
"We are going to lock them up. They are no longer going to be free to roam," Patel told CBS News. "We are going to dismantle the 'next man up' theory that has been breeding in these Mexican cartels for generations."
This is the third drug offload in South Florida in 2025. Last month, the Coast Guard offloaded nearly 46,000 pounds of illegal drugs worth $517.5 million and arrested 34 suspected smugglers, CBS News reported.
Earlier in March, more than 12,000 pounds of cocaine, valued at $141 million, was brought to the Coast Guard station in Miami Beach after being confiscated in open waters using planes, thermal imaging and speed boats, CBS News reported.
The seizure led to the arrest of more than a dozen smugglers, CBS News said.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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