Pubdate: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 Source: Washington Post (DC) Section: Pg A20 Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Feedback: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm Address: 1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071 Email: 2000 The Washington Post Company Author: Associated Press BOAT SEIZED FEB. 24 HAD 8.8 TONS OF COCAINE, U.S. SAYS SAN DIEGO, March 4 -- U.S. authorities today unloaded 8.8 tons of cocaine that they said was seized on a rusty fishing boat off the coast of Mexico. It was the government's fourth-largest seizure. The Coast Guard said a Navy destroyer with a Coast Guard law enforcement unit on board seized the boat Feb. 24 about 250 miles west of Acapulco. The boat was towed to San Diego. The seizure capped what the agency called one of its most productive weeks of anti-drug patrols. In six days, the Coast Guard -- from Miami to the Caribbean, and in the Pacific from Mexico to Washington state -- seized 28,845 pounds of cocaine, about the same amount it captured in all of 1996. "We've never had a week like this where our border has been assaulted all the way from the Bahamas to Seattle," said Cmdr. Jim McPherson. The 10 crew members of the Belize-flagged boat, Forever My Friend, will face drug-smuggling charges that carry a minimum 10-year sentence and a maximum of life in prison on conviction, U.S. Attorney Gregory Vega said. The crew members were to appear in federal court in San Diego on Monday. Eight of the men are from Nicaragua, one is from El Salvador and one is from Ukraine. The cocaine was found in a secret compartment, authorities said. Agents wearing surgical masks, gloves and protective white jumpsuits spent this morning unloading the large blocks of cocaine from the boat. Federal agents with automatic weapons guarded it on the pier. The string of recent seizures reflects a general increase in the amount of cocaine seized at sea by the Coast Guard working with the Navy, the Customs Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal agencies. In 1999, the Coast Guard seized a record 55 tons of cocaine, which broke the previous record of 40.7 tons. In 2000, the agency captured 66 tons. The Coast Guard estimates it captures only a fraction of U.S.-bound cocaine. The cocaine generally is produced in Colombia and shipped either through the Caribbean or via the Pacific to Mexico. From Mexico, the drugs are smuggled into the United States through the Southwest. Navy ships on drug patrols travel with Coast Guard contingents on board because the U.S. military is prohibited from law- enforcement activities. The Coast Guard, which is part of the Transportation Department, faces no such restriction. During the string of seizures from Feb. 21 to Feb. 27, the agencies also captured 5,154 pounds from a Canadian trawler off Washington's Pacific Coast on Feb. 21 and 3,920 pounds from a small powerboat north of San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Feb. 25. In all, 24 people were arrested. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth