PORTSMOUTH-BASED CUTTER AIDS IN HIGH-SPEED DRUG RAID

A nine-hour drug chase by the Portsmouth-based cutter Tampa and three other
Coast Guard boats near Cuba ended with bullets flying at a high-speed
"go-fast" boat and the seizure of 5,000 pounds of marijuana, 300 pounds of
hashish oil, and the arrest of three men, officials said.

The drug raid last week also may have ushered in a new era of "Wolf Pack"
tactics deployed by the Coast Guard as it trades smarts for speed in the
continuing war on drug smuggling in the Caribbean.

"This shows the benefits of numerous units, ships and planes working
together," said Cmdr. Jim Howe, the Tampa's commanding officer, as he
described the incident by telephone Tuesday.

"In this case, we had three 110-foot patrol boats, a C-130 aircraft and an
H-60 helicopter. With that task group, we were able to take a boat that was
faster than any of us combined, turn him around, get him discombobulated,
and basically shut him down and seize his drugs."

Howe said the Tampa had detected a small boat on radar heading north at high
speed inside Cuban territorial waters near the eastern tip of Cuba about 10
p.m. Jan. 9.

"We believe they came from Jamaica," he said. "It's a 300-mile run from
there to the Bahamas, and we picked them up about halfway."

Howe had the three 110-foot patrol boats -- Monhegan, Matagorda and Padre,
all based in Florida -- position themselves to the north of the target.

The drug boat entered international waters a few minutes later, and the
chase was on, Howe said.

However, in less than 30 minutes the vessel turned south and headed back
into Cuban waters, apparently in an attempt to evade the Coast Guard.

For the next seven hours, the task group tracked the speedboat as it sped
northwest inside Cuban waters. The Tampa coordinated continual repositioning
of the cutters.

"The 110-footers performed a 'Wolf Pack,' " said Howe, repositioning
themselves ahead of the speedboat, giving him nowhere to turn. "For the
first three times he tried to sneak north of us, the 110-footers each fired
warning shots across his bow."

More than 100 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition were fired, the Coast Guard
said.

"The fourth time he tried it, they were able to get close enough to put some
M-16 rounds in his engines," Howe said.

An hour before sunrise last Wednesday, the vessel's crew was seen throwing
bales into the water. Coast Guard crews spent the next four hours retrieving
60 bales of marijuana and two 40-pound buckets of hashish oil from the
water.

"These boats are interesting," Howe said. "They are built for nothing but
smuggling. There's a center console aft, with everything else open
construction. They're 30 to 35 feet long, and they can pack a ton or two of
marijuana in them.

"They are getting bolder," Howe said of the smugglers. "This is the threat
we face, and this is why we are real glad our tactics here worked.

"It has been frustrating over the last couple of years to try to find ways
to stop these guys. We think we have a pretty good endgame against these
guys."

The three suspected smugglers, the contraband and their boat were taken to
Miami on Saturday aboard the Persistent, a Little Creek-based surface ship
used as a launch platform in the Caribbean for the Coast Guard's force of
high-speed pursuit boats.

The Tampa is one of six 270-foot cutters based in Portsmouth. Its 98-member
crew is about halfway through a 185-day Caribbean patrol and plans to spend
next week in its namesake city of Tampa.

"We'll be there for the Super Bowl," said Howe. "We've got two $400 tickets
that we'll raffle away. So some lucky crew member will get those for $5."