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American Morning

Coast Guard Seizes 13 Tons of Cocaine from Fishing Vessel

Aired May 14, 2001 - 11:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And now to California, where authorities in San Diego are investigating one of the largest cocaine busts in U.S. maritime history. The U.S. Coast Guard found more than 23,000 pounds of cocaine on a fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean south of San Diego. Sally Sherry, who is with our CNN affiliate KGTV, joins us from the Coast Guard station in San Diego with the latest -- Sally, good morning.

SALLY SHERRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

The drugs hidden in secret compartments. And they were hidden so well that it took searchers more than five days to actually find them. Now, that fishing boat has been towed here to San Diego. They brought it here yesterday. And this morning, it is at Naval Station San Diego.

We got some good pictures from the air of that boat and all the seizures, 13 tons of cocaine. Now, officers aboard a Navy ship first spotted the boat 1,500 miles south of San Diego. They were suspicious because the boat was not in a normal fishing area and it didn't have any working fishing equipment on board.

After days of searching, the Navy called in the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard came in and seized 13 tons of cocaine from the fishing boat. The name of that boat, the Svesda Maru, is which we believe there were 10 Russian and Ukrainian crewmembers on board. Those crewmembers have been brought here to San Diego. They're expected to be arraigned sometime early this week, possibly as early as today. And officials believe that these drugs were headed either to Central America or to Mexico. They were going to be brought then to land and then smuggled by land up to the United States.

We are live in San Diego. I'm Sally Sherry. Daryn, back to you.

KAGAN: Sally, with that in mind that these drugs could have been headed to the U.S., have authorities put a dollar value on what they think this is worth?

SHERRY: They haven't yet. Then are going to have a press conference at 12:00 our time today. They're not releasing any more information than that. We also tried to find out when they are going to be arraigned. And they said possibly today either at 10:00 at 1:00, but we are going to be getting that information later on.

KAGAN: All right, Sally Sherry with our affiliate KGTV, thank you.

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