Over 11,000 kilos of cocaine and 4,000 kilos of marijuana, valued at about $223 million complete had been seized by the Coast Guard within the Pacific Ocean and offloaded in San Diego on Thursday.

The medicine had been seized by Coast Guard crews from a number of vessels over eight incidents that additionally led to the arrest of 15 folks in connection to the narcotics, the Coast Guard stated Thursday.

"Illicit medicine value our nation almost $200 billion yearly in crime, well being, security and misplaced productiveness," Vice Admiral Michael McAllister, the Coast Guard's Pacific space commander, stated throughout a Thursday information convention. "However it's not nearly maintaining medicine off the streets of our nation. Our mixed operations present essential contributions to regional stability in Central and South America, and really broad safety implications all alongside our southwest border."

The medicine had been seized throughout the eight incidents over the past two months, the Coast Guard stated. They had been seized by the crews of the Coast Guard Cutters Kimball, Legare and Spencer, together with the HMCS Yellowknife of the Canadian Navy, and had been offloaded into San Diego from the Hawaii-based Kimball.

Coast Guard Drugs Seized
Over $200 million in seized medicine was offloaded by the Coast Guard in San Diego on Thursday. Above, the Coast Guard Auxiliary insignia is seen March 4, 2003, in Belmar, New Jersey.William Thomas Cain/Getty Pictures

"This marks the primary of possible many counter-drug patrols for Kimball and I'm extraordinarily pleased with our crew's preparation and exhausting work to make this an especially profitable deployment, stated Captain Thomas D'Arcy, commanding officer of the Kimball. "Kimball's crew demonstrated that by means of teamwork we had been capable of take away over $100 million dollars of cocaine, stopping it from ever crossing our borders or coming into our neighborhoods, and additional eradicating a supply of illicit income from transnational felony networks."

Final month, over $1.06 billion value of medication had been offloaded by the Coast Guard in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, amounting to over 54,000 kilos of cocaine and about 16,000 kilos of marijuana.

That bust was slightly below the document set throughout one other offloading of medication on the similar Florida port final August when 59,700 kilos of cocaine and round 1,843 kilos of marijuana had been seized, valued by the Coast Guard at about $1.4 billion.

"Each bale of cocaine on this flight deck that does not make it to our shores represents lives saved in New York Metropolis, Philly, Chicago, Los Angeles or any city within the U.S. that is coping with pandemic ranges of drug overdoses this yr," Captain Todd Vance of the Coast Guard Cutter James, the ship that offloaded the medicine for the August bust, stated on the time.

Replace 3/31/22, 6:45 p.m. ET: This text has been up to date with extra info and details about different latest Coast Guard drug busts.

Replace 3/31/22, 5:55 p.m. ET: This text has been up to date with extra info.