AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Dauntless fishing report3/18/2023 ![]() A short time later, Warren radioed that the marijuana had been offloaded, but the Big L had broken down. The pick-up boat was now identified as the 38-foot sportsfisherman Big L, out of Miami.įollowing the rendezvous, the Dauntless crew extinguished all navigation lights and steamed stealthily north. The police boat would linger out of sight in case the pick-up boat tried to escape into Bahamian territorial waters. After taking on board the BNDD agents, the crew headed toward a sunset rendezvous with a Bahamian police boat southwest of the offload site. Coast Guard photo provided by CWO Charlie BozemanĪccording to the pre-operation brief, this case might not prove so friendly. The sport fisherman Big L as she was photographed just prior to being seized by a boarding party from the Dauntless. Although one of these cases involved recovery of several grenades and an automatic pistol, the boardings had been friendly with the Coast Guard viewed as a rescuer. Under Commander Chuck Millradt, Dauntless’ crew of nine officers and 63 enlisted men had already rescued several hundred Cuban migrants in just two months. The 210-foot medium-endurance cutter had just returned from two weeks of patrolling the Florida Strait, where it had been searching for Cuban refugees near Cay Sal, at the southwestern edge of the Bahamas. Six agents met Coast Guard Cutter Dauntless at homeport in Miami Beach on the morning of March 8. territorial waters and worldwide on the high seas. The Service’s officers and petty officers may enforce all applicable American laws both in U.S. law enforcement entity, the Coast Guard’s maritime expertise was exactly what Agent Cook needed. With perhaps the broadest authority of any U.S. waters, which extended only to 12 nautical miles, Agent Cook turned to the Coast Guard. Realizing that the BNDD lacked the capability and jurisdiction to intercept the contact boat outside of U.S. Coast Guard photo provided by RMCS Jack Pickard She has operated out of Pensacola, Florida since 2018. Originally assigned to Miami Beach, Florida the cutter was reassigned to Galveston, Texas, after a major overhaul in 1993. USCGC Dauntless joined the Coast Guard fleet in June 1968. Then, when Adventurer III was underway on the return trip, Parks told Warren that rather than returning directly to Miami, he was to transfer the load to him on board a second vessel near North Cat Cay, ten miles south of Bimini. The Miami dealer, Michael Parks, was light on cash and the Jamaicans decided that two of their own men would accompany the vessel to ensure delivery of the load and payment of the balance owed. Unfortunately, the plan started to fall apart as soon as the load was picked up in Jamaica. Two undercover agents posing as his crew would assist Warren, and the drugs and conspirators ashore would be seized upon Adventurer III’s return to Miami. A BNDD agent known only as “Agent Cook,” from the Miami Field Office, had convinced the owner of the fishing vessel Adventurer III, Roy Warren, to accept an offer from a local drug dealer to pick up a load of marijuana for him in Jamaica. The case had begun two months earlier as a controlled-delivery operation of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, forerunner of today’s Drug Enforcement Administration. On the evening of March 8, 1973, Coast Guard cutter Dauntless made the Coast Guard’s first seizure of a marijuana smuggler when it stopped the sport fisherman Big L at the western edge of the Bahamas.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |