Aided by helicopters with high-tech weapons, three Portsmouth-based Coast Guard cutters have gone on a drug-bust binge in the Caribbean that has netted nearly $400 million worth of cocaine in the past five weeks. The helicopters, carrying a crewmember who has a laser-sighted .50-caliber rifle that can disable the engines of the high-speed boats used by smugglers, have been the key to the Coast Guard's recent success. "Before, when we've been flying over these guys, we just had to wave, and they'd give us the finger and float away," said Lt. Shawn Koch, one of the Coast Guard helicopter pilots. "Now we have a way to stop them." [continues 580 words]
U.S. Rep. Ed Schrock expressed doubt Thursday that the Afghan government will fulfill its vow to rid the nation of its soon-to-be-harvested opium poppy crop. ``My personal hope was to eradicate that stuff,'' Schrock said Thursday in a telephone interview from an air base in neighboring Uzbekistan. ``But this is the largest cash crop in the country and it will be a hard sell'' to convince Afghanistan's people to abandon it, Schrock said. Schrock, a Republican who represents Virginia's 2nd District, which includes portions of Virginia Beach and Norfolk, left Monday for an eight-day tour of Afghanistan. Joining him were congressional members from Massachusetts, Nevada, Pennsylvania, California, Texas and Florida. Schrock is scheduled to return to Washington on Monday. [continues 417 words]
PORTSMOUTH -- Drug dealers trying to outrun the Coast Guard with high-speed boats are increasingly being cut off at the pass. Coast Guard helicopters and cutters are shooting at suspicious boats trying to avoid capture. This get-tough approach, called Operation New Frontier, is relatively new for the Coast Guard, which had previously refrained from firing at civilian vessels. The Coast Guard on Friday announced the results of eight recent drug boat seizures resulting from its drug-interdiction operation, which combines the use of cutters, armed helicopters and other assets to stop the high-speed drug boat threat. [continues 574 words]
NORFOLK -- The Navy's Atlantic Fleet has seen a 24 percent increase in the illegal use of drugs among its newest sailors in the past four years, prompting its commander to call for "a full-court press" toward more education, deterrence and detection. In 1996 the Atlantic Fleet discharged 857 first-enlistment sailors because of drug abuse. In 2000 the number increased to 1,060, while other reasons for attrition -- misconduct or medical problems -- decreased. There are more than 97,000 enlisted sailors in the Atlantic Fleet and 9,815 officers. [continues 632 words]
PORTSMOUTH - Coast Guard crews chasing elusive Caribbean drug smugglers, frequently in vain because of their slow craft, say the introduction of their new 38-foot, 840-horsepower fiberglass Deployable Pursuit Boats is starting to level the playing field. Two of the new boats are sprinting across Hampton Roads waters at interstate speeds this week, training to use innovative tactics designed to thwart drug traffickers who, until now, have been able to outrace the Coasties. The gray, 3 1/2 -ton vessel, resembling a sharpened pencil with a rubber skirt around its gunwale, can skim over 4-foot seas with barely a wiggle and can take 7-foot seas with a pounding its four-member crew can live with. [continues 1020 words]
