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Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to witness the offloading of over half a billion dollars’ worth of illicit drugs seized by the US Coast Guard.
On Thursday, Pence will visit two US Navy bases in San Diego, California. At one of those bases, the Naval Air Station North Island, the Veep plans to attend an “offloading” ceremony, where the Coast Guard will transfer 39,000 pounds of cocaine and 933 pounds of weed for destruction, likely by dumping it into the sea. (Good luck trying to retrieve that from the Pacific, dope fiends.)
By the Coast Guard’s estimates, the drug-dump will wipe out an estimated $569 million worth of coke and cannabis, according to street values.
“We disrupt the cocaine profits drug cartels use to diversify and fund other illicit activities like trafficking opioids and methamphetamines, and we do it at sea where they are most vulnerable,” the Coast Guard said in a statement.
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In 2016, then-presidential candidate Trump declared himself the “Law and Order Candidate,” and getting tough on drug crimes was one of his campaign promises. Earlier this year, under Trump’s watch, US Customs conducted the biggest cocaine bust in the nation’s history, seizing $1 billion in cocaine in Philadelphia.
As for the Coast Guard, its most recent cocaine-seizure record was set in 2017, with 493,000 pounds of blow confiscated. Before that, in 2016, the Coast Guard intercepted 416,000 pounds of cocaine. And before that, the record was 367,700 pounds, in 2008.
Oddly enough, the US Southern Command mentions precisely “39,000 pounds of cocaine worth over $531 million” being offloaded by the US Coast Guard — nearly three years ago. Is this the same coke that Vice President Pence will watch go bye-bye on Thursday?
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