Three Mexican suspects were arrested April 24 after an ocean pursuit off the coast of Malibu. Los Angeles County lifeguards notified the sheriff's Malibu/Lost Hills Station of a suspicious boat about 50 feet off Latigo Beach. Deputies confirmed it was a panga boat and called the US Department of Homeland Security, which deployed an air and marine unit. Homeland Security's bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said the Mexican nationals were arrested following a chase that ended about 11 nautical miles southwest of Point Dume. Shortly before the pursuit ensued, the panga's occupants began tossing bales of compacted cannabis overboard. The US Coast Guard has recovered more than 80 bales.
The incident was the fourth maritime cannabis smuggling interdiction off the Los Angeles coast this week. (Los Angeles Daily News, April 24)
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Coast Guard officer killed by presumed smugglers
Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne, 34, was killed last week off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif., when presumed smugglers rammed their 30-foot fishing boat into the small Coast Guard vessel he was on. Episodes involving smugglers off the California coast have increased fourfold since 2008, with more than 200 smuggling vessels spotted by American law enforcement agencies during the last fiscal year. Marijuana seizures from maritime smugglers, meanwhile, were up fourfold from just one year earlier. And some smugglers are also carrying human cargo, circumventing the security along the land border for those with the means to pay for it. (NYT, Dec. 8)