HMS Lancaster Makes $150M Cocaine Haul
A few weeks after leaving Bermuda, the Royal Navy’s HMS Lancaster assisted in another drug bust, this time seizing 680kg worth of cocaine with an estimated street value of $150 million after sailors boarded a speedboat near Puerto Rico.
The UK Navy said the ship sped to the area and launched her Lynx helicopter and high-speed pursuit boat to intercept the 30ft vessel with three suspected smugglers on board.
As Lancaster approached, the men attempted to dispose of the evidence by throwing one bale of drugs overboard, but these were quickly recovered by the boat crew.
The drug smuggling boat being destroyed [Photo by Jay Allan, via Royal Navy]:
A total of 22 bales of pure cocaine were seized along with the three men on board who were then handed over to the Coast Guard Cutter Sapelo and then the authorities in Puerto Rico.
As is standard practice, the empty drugs boat was subsequently sunk by Royal Navy gunfire to prevent its use in future smuggling operations.
UK Secretary of State for Defence Philip Hammond said: “This extraordinary quantity of drugs has been stopped from reaching the streets by the swift actions of the Royal Navy, working closely with the US Coastguard.
“This is HMS Lancaster’s second counter narcotics patrol in the Caribbean to tackle the drugs trade and the entire ship’s company should be proud of this remarkable achievement.
Slideshow of the HMS Lancaster from when the ship was in Bermuda in June 2013:
HMS Lancaster is visiting British Overseas Territories as part of a six-month deployment in the Caribbean and North Atlantic. Bermuda was the first port of call on their deployment.
These patrols are part of Operation Martillo, a 15-nation collaborative effort to deny transnational criminal organisations air and maritime access to the littoral regions of Central America; and focus on putting a stop to the illegal movement of drugs from South America into the Caribbean and onwards to the UK.
Counter narcotic operations with the USA and other partner nations is one of a range of tasks HMS Lancaster is conducting across the Caribbean in support of British interests. Others include providing reassurance and security for British Overseas Territories and the provision of humanitarian aid and disaster relief during the core hurricane season.
Brainless. Truly brainless. How much cocaine and other toxic chemicals went into the ocean? No consequence on environment or marine life, which is all part of the symbiotic food chain we are part of?
Nah. Just shoot em up and let em dump it. Won’t matter, eh?
How about the fact that numerous insiders have blown the whistle on aircraft carriers, military jets, etc are the ones bringing illegal drugs into America. Time and time again such corrupt people are busted with tonnes of cocaine onboard their vehicles/vessels.
The other sad fact is, crime and drug prices are related to the availability of the product. These officers know that, but still take huge amounts of narcotics off markets, which in turn will DIRECTLY drive up street prices, and related crimes. They don’t care. As long as they get the “evil drugs” off the street, right?
While the hospitals legally stockpile heroin, cocaine, etc. Such a hypocritical world we live in.
Heroin is purchased for pennies a pound in Afghanistan, shipped by the hundreds of tonnes in aircraft carriers and subs to America etc, where it is then sold for billions or more. It is the largest mark-up in any industry. And this is only possible by the illegal status of these drugs.
The nations which legalized narcotics and drugs all note a huge decrease in crime and drug use. Why doesn’t the rest of the world follow suit? Why do we continue to FEED gangs literally, instead of choking them off?
When you make a big bust, all you achieve is driving the street price up, making all the gangs more violent and territorial, make drug addicts more addicted and criminally active etc etc. Nothing but negative.
The portion of population which does hard drugs is very small. The number would not increase if these drugs were legal. Officials know this, and countries worldwide have proven this in practicality. Why do other nations ignore it?
Why? Because they get a cut in the drug money. From pennies a pound to hundreds of thousands. Not even OIL can give you that type of mark up.
Why destroy a market that feeds the bad guys, when you are the bad guys, with a bunch of clueless naive pawns and puppets running your operation?
The drug industry is worth trillions of dollars. It funds all black projects in America and other nations. This is the secret cabal that has its own spider web of operatives. The spiders stay hidden. But they cannot hide forever. They pretend to bust little dealers and the big boys always get off.
Remember Yankee getting caught with all that crack cocaine here? What happened to him? A month in jail. Hmmmmm. And if a regular good guy who used a small snifter of coke gets caught, he goes jail for life and million dollar fine? Don’t make me laugh.
Hypocrisy smells fishy because there is something smelly being hidden from our eyes.
sounds like u need a life, btw, if you read the article they removed the cocaine before destorying the boat. But hey according to people like you everybody should use drugs, let’s all turn into zombies like some of the bums aroudn the world.
Yup, You can always tell the ones that support using drugs just by their comments
P.S. They should sunk the suppliers along with the boat cause that’s what any dealer/supplier deserve
Even the ones that bring the Starbucks Caffè Verona in? NOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I CANT LIVE WITHOUT MY MORNING CUP OF JOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
AAAAAND you can always tell those who don’t understand what drugs are by their comments.
People just need to stop buying drugs…Problem solved. Anyone who buys it is funding crime, death and misery.
Cigarettes & alcohol cause death & misery also but I don’t see anyone campaigning to make them illegal. The crime part is a product of prohibition laws not the drugs prohibited. Just as we have gangs fighting over drug selling turf now during the prohibition of alcohol caused the wars between the Capone & O’Banion gangs. America tried to do all sorts to get people to stop drinking alcohol & went as far as killing ten thousand by lacing alcohol with poison & still could not stop people from partaking. Why make laws about what adults can or can’t put in themselves? The government & police are not the parents of the citizens of a nation. Prohibition contradicts democracy & is as asinine as it would be if laws were made that prohibited people from drinking coffee.
Wow – someone needs to relax a little bit. Got some extra time on your hands buddy? Ever consider a hobby?
Thank you to the UK and the US for ridding the streets of these drugs and of these idiots.
Ya, everybody should stop using drugs… Why not burn down all the pharmacies that sell pharmaceutical drugs as well. Let’s suppress everyone’s well being of comfort regardless of what your doctor prescribes under medical terms. Pharmaceutical drugs kill more people than illegal drugs, thats a fact, what brainiac doesn’t know that? They even have some of you idiots believing Cannabis is a drug even with its many uses of healing powers without any side effects… Who gives one the right to say what another can do or can’t do with oneself?
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lol wow they all missed your main point. I guess its true, what you don’t know won’t hurt you, until it does.
In the United States, the Stepan Company is the only manufacturing plant authorized by the Federal Government to import and process the coca plant,[57] which it obtains mainly from Peru and, to a lesser extent, Bolivia. Besides producing the coca flavoring agent for Coca-Cola, the Stepan Company extracts cocaine from the coca leaves, which it sells to Mallinckrodt, a St. Louis, Missouri, pharmaceutical manufacturer that is the only company in the United States licensed to purify cocaine for medicinal use
GOOD…go find some more of these scumbags and bust them too.
@TGAOTU you my friend contradict yourself lol maybe you should become a politician becaus eyou make no sense bro. First you blast them for apparently blowing up a boat and dumping cocaine in the ocean, which they didnt do.(READ ARTICLE) beside they have to keep the coke as evidence you scholar you. Secondly you say they contaminated the ocean and marine life…..but allowing coke does what? Oh yeah contaminate the streets and human life. Im glad you care more about the fish.
If people didnt get hooked on drugs hospitals wouldnt have to stockpile it as you say. If you never start, you don;t have to stop. But as long as people sniff their brains away there will be treatment centers. Don’t want to see them profit? dont get hooked…..but that makes way to much sense…i get it.
War on(some)drugs, has never and will never succeed,it is folly in that overall it causes more harm to those in whose behalf it claims to be carried out,even more-so than the effects of the drugs themselves.
Profit from this Multi Billion Dollar industry is what’s funding Hezbollah, El Queda, Muslim Brotherhood as well as every other Terrorist group including all the wars since Viet Nam days.Brought to you by USA Inc.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/us-air-force-transports-24-tons-of-cocaine-to-miami.html
***RULE BRITANNIA**!!!!
Well done lad’s!!!
who cares about drugs! people need to stop makin such a fuss and fight and carry on with their own lives.
There has to be a better way of getting rid of the boat than that. Polluting our already polluted ocean even further so the royal navy can play with its guns seems a little childish and unnecessary.
@ Dumb. You definitely fit the name. That’s how you sound. DUMB.