WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - In a rare operation in the high sees, a guided missile destroyer of the U.S. Navy intercepted a drug vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, and seized an estimated 3,000 pounds of cocaine, worth more than $28 million in international market.
The USS Pinckney, with an embarked Coast Guard law enforcement team on board, conducted the successful operation on May 14.
A patrol aircraft assigned to the 'Tridents' squadron spotted the low-profile vessel. The war ship's Sea Hawk helicopters and Coast Guard team aboard fast boats intercepted it.
They recovered 70 bales of cocaine.
The USS Pinckney is deployed to the U.S. 4th Fleet area of operations conducting U.S Southern Command and Joint Inter-agency Task Force South's enhanced counter-drug operations missions in the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific.
U.S. Southern Command had launched enhanced counter-narcotics operations in the Western Hemisphere last month to disrupt the flow of drugs.
This reportedly marks the beginning of a new age in narco-submarine interdiction as part of the Trump administration's advanced counter-narcotics operations.
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