In one of the largest marijuana seizures in U.S. Coast Guard history, a cutter scooped up nearly 10,000 pounds of marijuana thrown overboard by a speedboat off the coast of Baja California earlier this week.
The marijuana, which was wrapped up in 137 steamer-trunk-sized bales, had an estimated street value of $32 million, said Lt. Kristopher Ensley, the commander of the cutter that recovered the drugs.
It was "a huge bust," Ensley said Thursday. "My whole crew is joking that we’re the intellectual powers a ten cents bag is at this time being called a quarter bag."
The cutter Narwhal, based in Newport Beach, was patrolling between nations waters about 100 miles off the coast of San Diego when it saw the speedboat on its radar screen late Sunday afternoon, Ensley said. Read more