Posted on 04/24/2007 9:14:25 AM PDT by BradtotheBone
PANAMA CITY, Panama Mar 19, 2007 (AP) Panamanian police seized a boat off the nation's Pacific coast carrying 21.4 tons of cocaine in one of the biggest maritime cocaine busts anywhere on record, officials said Monday.
National police working with agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency seized the boat on Sunday near the island of Coiba, said a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
Police arrested 12 men on the boat, including Mexicans and Panamanians, and another two suspects in Panama City in connection with the drugs, the official said.
The boat, which was sailing under a Panamanian flag, was being transported to Panama City on Monday, he said.
Drug cartels often smuggle Colombian cocaine along Panama's Pacific coast en route to the United States.
In 2004, the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy seized 28 tons of cocaine from two fishing boats off the coast of the Galapagos Islands in what State Department officials then called their largest seizures ever during a one-week stretch.
In 2005, police in southwest Colombia seized 15 tons of cocaine from a jungle stronghold, in what national authorities called the largest haul ever on their soil.
Back in my route 66 days, I motorcycled to Panama and got hooked up with the smugglers, who lived in a card board jungle in San Cristobal. In those days they were smuggling cigarettes and booze out of Columbia. One beat up guy had been keel hauled by the Panamanian Coast Guard three times.
I was going to captain an LST back to Florida that had been used to steal hardwoods out of Nicaragua..... oh those were the days....
IMO, this 21 tons and whatever else was confiscated is the bribe in order for the larger shipments to pass by undisturbed.
Do you care that this is a completely false story put out by AP and reissued by ABC?
They bribed the U. S. Coast Guard? That’s who has the coke.
If my calculations are correct thats 5,376,000 8 balls of coke, uncut. I don’t know what the street value is but that is going to make a whole bunch of people mad....
“I dont know what the street value...”
On FoxNews, the street value was reported at half a billion dollars.
“I’m saying the “final” amount reported will be under 10. Your 7 may be real close.”
Our Coast Guard has the coke and made the bust. This story is not true.
7...........6............5.............3...........1........
Yeah, whatever. Enjoy your fake news.
Madness, pure madness (the pro-drug people that think this is all a conspiracy, that is)
It wasn’t mine! I just poked at the dead body!..................
I don’t think it is accurate either. Perhaps the Panamanian police were represented there due to the location. And you have to consider the source in the story.....ABC News and a Panamanian police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record
Wow! Bet this street value makes your standard police issue desk calculator go into “OVERFLOW ERROR”.
@ $300 AN 8 BALL (3.5 GRAMS) (EARLY 90’S #’S) THATS $1,612,800,000.00
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