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| Photo from JIATFS |
A little-known organization to the American public helped the US Coast Guard to seize 317-pounds of cocaine valued at just under US$5 million and to apprehend two smugglers following an at-sea interdiction in the Caribbean. The interdiction and arrest took place about 80 nautical miles south of the Dominican Republic. Let me discuss this critical organization a bit more.
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| Photo from JIATFS |
It's name is the Joint Interagency Task Force-South (JIATF) and on Wednesday (10/01/14), the Coast Guard reported that during a routine patrol the crew of a Canadian aircraft, patrolling on behalf of the JIATF detected a 30-foot go-fast vessel travelling towards the Dominican Republic. The JIATF aircraft notified Coast Guard officials, who searched the go-fast boat and recovered the illegal drug shipment of six bales of cocaine. Two men onboard were arrested and handed over to special agents of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) for further investigation and prosecution.
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| Photo from JIATFS |
As mentioned previously, the JIATFS is a relatively unheard of organization to the American public, mainly because its rarely reported on any of the major news channels. It fuses together the local, regional and international capabilities of law enforcement to eliminate illicit drug trafficking. JIATFS believes that the illegal production and trafficking of drugs undermines stability throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, thus threatening U.S. national security.
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| Photo from JIATFS |
The power of JIATFS lies in its facilitation of cooperation between partner nations and U.S. law enforcement. They conduct interagency and international detection and monitoring operations to interdict illicit trafficking and other narco-terrorist threats. Hats off to the men and women of this relatively unknown organization!
Robert Morton, M.Ed., Ed.S. authors the online spy series "Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster in the Caribbean". If you like spy thrillers and love the Florida Keys and Caribbean islands, you'll enjoy it. Click above to get 3 complementary beginning episodes!