The U.S. Coast Guard is unloading nearly $500 million of cocaine (collected from 20 separate seizures in the eastern Pacific Ocean) in South Florida.
Coast Guard say the seizures have totaled about 18.5 tons of cocaine. The recently seized drugs were brought to Port Everglades.
Authorities say the cocaine was intercepted by Coast Guard cutters and a Royal Canadian Navy ship sailing with a Coast Guard team aboard. The eastern Pacific is a prime smuggling route for cocaine headed to Mexico, where it is typically brought into the U.S.
Numerous suspected smugglers are being prosecuted by U.S. attorneys in California, along the East Coast and elsewhere as a result of the operations.