SEATTLE — The Coast Guard Cutter Active returned to their homeport in Port Angeles, Wash., Tuesday, after a 10-week, 13,000-mile counter-narcotics deployment in the Pacific Ocean off the coasts of Central and South America.
The Active’s 75-member crew conducted law enforcement boardings in the Eastern Pacific, including two interdictions involving cocaine seizures, disrupting the delivery of nearly two tons of illicit drugs worth more than $40 million. The interdictions stemmed from Active's participation in Operation Martillo, a Joint Interagency Task Force operation aimed at deterring illegal smuggling.
“Our entire crew becomes fully energized by these opportunities to deter harmful drugs from reaching the United States,” said Cmdr. Benjamin Berg, commanding officer of Coast Guard Cutter Active. “Stopping the flow near the source also puts a significant hurt on the criminal organizations that rely on these proceeds to fund further violent and destructive criminal activities. I am so proud of this crew and their successful operations during this deployment.”
During the deployment, the Active stopped in California to represent the Coast Guard at Los Angeles’s inaugural Fleet Week activities. Active’s crew participated in several community relations events, including providing public tours of the ship.
The Coast Guard and its interagency partners removed more than 416,600 pounds of cocaine worth over $5.6 billion in Fiscal Year 2016, which ran from Oct. 1, 2015, to Sept. 30, 2016. The service's previous record was 367,700 pounds of cocaine removed in Fiscal Year 2008.