Drugs Shipment Seized

From the Source, our on-line newspaper. You can read it at www.stjohnsource.com. This is an article about how someone actually did something here to deter crime. It wasn't the local authorities, of course, but the DEA.

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Feds Seize Millions in Cocaine at St. Thomas Marina
By DARRIN MORTENSON — April 15, 2010

Federal agents on St. Thomas this week busted two crew members of a charted sailboat that the Drug Enforcement Administration says carried 250 kilos of cocaine, with an estimated street value of roughly $5 million.
After tracking the 54-foot Laurel as part of an ongoing investigation, the federal High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) task force, based on St. Thomas, dispatched helicopters, planes and Coast Guard vessels to international waters north of Grenada Tuesday to intercept the sailboat and divert it to St. Thomas, according to a statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office issued late Thursday.
After the Coast Guard cutter Farallon escorted the Laurel to the Independent Boat Yard on the southeast side of St. Thomas, agents boarded the boat and arrested the crew before hauling out the cocaine and other items.
While agents combed through the boat Wednesday, DEA Special Agent in Charge James Doby asked the Source not to report the seizure right away. There was still a chance to make a second wave of arrests of other suspects the feds had been following on other islands, he said.
He said the secondary arrests had already been compromised Wednesday when the Daily News published a front-page story with photos announcing the seizure, despite pleas from agents in charge.
“We asked her to wait and she said she would,” Doby said of the Daily News reporter Wednesday, adding that the rush for a headline may have allowed other suspects to get away.
“The illicit trafficking of cocaine and the violence associated with its distribution, sale and use threatens the safety of every person in the Virgin Islands,” U.S. Attorney Ronald W. Sharpe said in the statement Thursday. “Therefore, it is critical that law enforcement disrupt drug traffickers’ delivery networks, seize their illegal products and prosecute all those involved in the criminal endeavor.”
The St. Thomas-based HIDTA, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Bridgetown Barbados Country Office, and the Caribbean Corridor Strike Force (CCSF) are continuing the investigation.
The St. Thomas HIDTA investigates both domestic and international drug trafficking, targeting organized crime leaders and dismantling and disrupting the flow of drugs through the territory, according to the statement. The HIDTA includes agents and funding from the DEA, U.S. Attorney’s Office, V.I. Police Department, U.S. Marshals Service, FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Internal Revenue Service.
The Caribbean Corridor Strike Force, which scrambled an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter, CBP Dash-8 aircraft and two Coast Guard cutters to the scene Tuesday, primarily investigates South American-based drug trafficking organizations that use the Caribbean as a transshipment point for smuggling large amounts of cocaine and other drugs and contraband in the United States.
In a recent interview with the Source, agents from the DEA said that most of the U.S.-bound drugs in the region are shipped from South America to the Dominican Republic, where many of the top Caribbean drug trafficking organizations are based.
On the way, the drugs are often hop-scotched through Puerto Rico and some of the smaller islands, mainly Dominica and Antigua, and only rarely through the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the agents.