Pubdate: Sat, 16 Mar 2002
Source: The Post and Courier (SC)
Copyright: 2002 Evening Post Publishing Co.
Contact:   http://www.charleston.net/index.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/567
Author: Terry Joyce, Post And Courier Staff

CUTTER'S SHARPSHOOTER HELPS DISABLE DRUG BOAT

A helicopter marksman from the Charleston-based Coast Guard cutter Gallatin 
recently helped shoot out the engines on a speedboat heading for the United 
States, loaded with at least 1,200 pounds of cocaine. "We feel pretty good 
about (the bust)," Capt. Wayne Parent, the Gallatin's skipper, said Friday. 
"I believe the (U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency) would put this at between $19 
million to $20 million" worth of illegal drugs. Parent spoke by satellite 
phone from the Gallatin while at sea in the western Caribbean. The cutter 
made the bust on Feb. 19, but the Coast Guard in Miami didn't release 
details until Friday. Parent said the Gallatin learned from a Navy P-3 
patrol plane that a so-called "go fast" boat was heading north in the 
Caribbean about 130 miles south of Haiti. Such boats are a favorite means 
of transport for smugglers hauling drugs into the United States from 
Colombia and other nations because they can outrun cutters like the 
Gallatin.Parent said it took about 20 minutes for helicopters from the 
Gallatin and another cutter to intercept the speedboat.

When the men on the boat refused to stop, sharpshooters on the helicopters 
used .50-caliber sniper rifles to shoot out both of the boat's engines. The 
four men on the boat threw a number of bales of cocaine overboard, but the 
helicopter crews marked the locations.

The Gallatin's crew recovered 18 bales from the water plus some still in 
the boat. The men on the boat surrendered as soon as the Gallatin arrived, 
Parent said. According to the Coast Guard in Miami, the Gallatin took part 
in a series of busts in the Pacific and the Caribbean that netted more than 
20 tons of cocaine in January and February. Under the nickname Operation 
New Frontier, select Coast Guard crews now use armed helicopters and 
high-speed boats to intercept "go-fast" smugglers that usually outran the 
slower cutters.

Before the Coast Guard armed its choppers, only one of 10 go-fast boats 
were intercepted. The biggest bust occurred on Feb. 10, the Coast Guard 
said. While deployed aboard a U.S. Navy vessel a seven-man detachment, 
assigned to Miami-based Coast Guard Tactical Law Enforcement Team South, 
intercepted a 65-foot Colombian fishing vessel 300 miles south of the 
Galapagos Islands. The team seized 12.6 tons of cocaine and detained nine 
suspected smugglers. It was the second-largest Coast Guard cocaine seizure 
to date. Parent said the four men on the speedboat the Gallatin intercepted 
claimed to be Colombian citizens but offered no ID. He said the Colombian 
government denied any knowledge of who they are. He said the men were 
turned over to federal authorities in Miami. The Gallatin departed 
Charleston on Jan. 21. It is scheduled to return home on March 23.
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