CUTTER'S SHARPSHOOTER HELPS DISABLE DRUG BOAT

A helicopter marksman from the Charleston-based Coast Guard cutter Gallatin
recently helped shoot out the engines on a speedboat heading for the United
States, loaded with at least 1,200 pounds of cocaine. "We feel pretty good
about (the bust)," Capt. Wayne Parent, the Gallatin's skipper, said Friday.
"I believe the (U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency) would put this at between $19
million to $20 million" worth of illegal drugs. Parent spoke by satellite
phone from the Gallatin while at sea in the western Caribbean. The cutter
made the bust on Feb. 19, but the Coast Guard in Miami didn't release
details until Friday. Parent said the Gallatin learned from a Navy P-3
patrol plane that a so-called "go fast" boat was heading north in the
Caribbean about 130 miles south of Haiti. Such boats are a favorite means
of transport for smugglers hauling drugs into the United States from
Colombia and other nations because they can outrun cutters like the
Gallatin.Parent said it took about 20 minutes for helicopters from the
Gallatin and another cutter to intercept the speedboat.

When the men on the boat refused to stop, sharpshooters on the helicopters
used .50-caliber sniper rifles to shoot out both of the boat's engines. The
four men on the boat threw a number of bales of cocaine overboard, but the
helicopter crews marked the locations.

The Gallatin's crew recovered 18 bales from the water plus some still in
the boat. The men on the boat surrendered as soon as the Gallatin arrived,
Parent said. According to the Coast Guard in Miami, the Gallatin took part
in a series of busts in the Pacific and the Caribbean that netted more than
20 tons of cocaine in January and February. Under the nickname Operation
New Frontier, select Coast Guard crews now use armed helicopters and
high-speed boats to intercept "go-fast" smugglers that usually outran the
slower cutters.

Before the Coast Guard armed its choppers, only one of 10 go-fast boats
were intercepted. The biggest bust occurred on Feb. 10, the Coast Guard
said. While deployed aboard a U.S. Navy vessel a seven-man detachment,
assigned to Miami-based Coast Guard Tactical Law Enforcement Team South,
intercepted a 65-foot Colombian fishing vessel 300 miles south of the
Galapagos Islands. The team seized 12.6 tons of cocaine and detained nine
suspected smugglers. It was the second-largest Coast Guard cocaine seizure
to date. Parent said the four men on the speedboat the Gallatin intercepted
claimed to be Colombian citizens but offered no ID. He said the Colombian
government denied any knowledge of who they are. He said the men were
turned over to federal authorities in Miami. The Gallatin departed
Charleston on Jan. 21. It is scheduled to return home on March 23.