RECORD 13 TONS OF COCAINE REPORTEDLY SEIZED FROM BOAT

Navy Searched Cargo For 5 Days Off San Diego

SAN DIEGO -- A Coast Guard crew has seized more than 13 tons of cocaine in
what authorities are calling the largest seizure of the drug in maritime
history, a law enforcement source said.

The record amount of cocaine was found on a fishing boat in the eastern
Pacific Ocean after it was searched for five days, the source said. The
boat was towed to San Diego on Sunday, said the source who spoke on the
condition of anonymity.

The U.S. Attorney's Office and other federal agencies are expected to
announce details of the seizure this morning at a news conference in San Diego.

The ship, called the Svesda Maru, is a Belize-flagged vessel and had a crew
of 10 aboard, all from Russia and the Ukraine, the source said.

The crew members are expected to be arraigned early this week in U.S.
District Court in San Diego on smuggling charges.

The vessel was first spotted about 1,500 miles south of San Diego by a U.S.
Navy ship. The anti-drug team was suspicious because the craft did not have
operable fishing equipment and was outside normal fishing grounds.

After more than five days of searching the vessel, the Coast Guard cutter
"Active" relieved the Navy ship and continued trying to locate drugs.
Authorities found the cocaine in a secret compartment underneath the
fishing hold.

The ship, which carried a total of 26,800 pounds of cocaine, was believed
to be headed toward Central America or Mexico, where its illicit cargo
would be smuggled over land into the United States.

The previous record for a cocaine seizure at sea was 24,000 pounds from a
ship called the Nataly I in 1995.

Cocaine seizures in the eastern Pacific Ocean have become increasingly
common in recent years as smugglers seek to evade law enforcement in the
Caribbean by taking advantage of the eastern Pacific's open territory.

In February, the Coast Guard seized an 8.8-ton shipment of cocaine found on
a rusty fishing boat off the coast of Mexico. The Belize-flagged "Forever
My Friend," had a crew of 10 aboard that included nine men from Central
America and one from Ukraine.

The cocaine in that seizure also was hidden in a secret compartment, buried
under ice and fresh fish.

This seizure, however, is unusual both for its size and the fact that the
crew consisted entirely of Russians and Ukrainians.

In 1999, the Coast Guard seized a record 55 tons of cocaine, which broke
the previous high of 40.7 tons. Then in 2000, the agency captured 66 tons.

During a six-day period earlier this year, the Coast Guard seized 28,845
pounds of cocaine, about the amount it captured in all of 1996.