The Coast Guard's newest cutter busted 2,100 pounds of cocaine before it even got to home port for the first time
The Murphy remained beside the go-fast boat while the the Midgett hurried to the scene, a trip that took five to six hours, according to Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Brickey.
The Coast Guard has law-enforcement authority to conduct a boarding, granted under title 14 US Code § 89, Brickey said in an email. Unlike the Navy, the Coast Guard is exempt from Posse Comitatus.
The expansion of the drug war and with it the Coast Guard's authority to detain suspected smugglers has raised concerns about legal procedure and due process.
Coast Guard crews coordinate with countries in the region to resolve jurisdictional issues regarding suspected smuggling vessels and people aboard them, but the service has faced criticism for holding detainees in international waters for weeks or months — a former Coast Guard lawyer described the cutters holding detainees as "floating Guantanamos."
In a December 2017 interview, then-Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft defended the service, calling that description "an unfair stab at the Coast Guard."
"We will provide them food, provide them shelter, provide them sanitation facilities. This is really a challenge of logistics," Zukunft said. "We're spending, right now, about 30% of our at-sea patrol time doing logistics for detainees to facilitate their arrival in the United States for further prosecution, so it really is a logistics effort."
The Midgett arrived on the scene, and its crew examined the objects thrown overboard, which tested positive for cocaine. Aboard the go-fast boat, the Midgett's boarding team found more than 2,100 pounds of the drug. The cutter's crew also took the three suspected smugglers into custody.
While the Coast Guard has accepted the Midgett, the ship won't be commissioned until August 24, and even then it will take another 18 months — during which it will get upgrades and installations easier done in port than in a shipyard, Brickey said — before it goes out on operations.
Despite being pre-commissioned, "this interdiction showcases how ready our crew is and how capable the national-security cutters are," said Capt. Alan McCabe, the Midgett's commanding officer, who highlighted the importance of partnering with the Navy.
"The command and crew went above and beyond the minimal 'ready for sea' requirements needed to sail the ship to Honolulu," Brickey said of the Midgett. "They also made sure they had the necessary qualifications, training, and inbriefs to execute this mission, knowing that part of their voyage would take them through the eastern Pacific ... a hotbed of smuggling activity. "
Cocaine production in Colombia, the main producer of the drug, has spiked in recent years, and the Coast Guard has hauled in record-setting amounts of cocaine over the same period.
Fiscal year 2017, which ran from October 2016 to September 2017, has the record with 493,000 pounds seized, topping the previous mark of 443,000 pounds set in fiscal year 2016. (The 2016 total well exceeded the previous record of 367,700 pounds in 2008.)
During fiscal year 2018, the service intercepted just over 458,000 pounds of cocaine — the second-highest total ever. Through July 2019, the Coast Guard had intercepted 230,000 pounds of the drug.
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