With improved intelligence and equipment, the Coast Guard has set a
record for the amount of cocaine seized in one year.

In the last year the U.S. Coast Guard seized more than 240,518 pounds
of cocaine headed for the United States, shattering the agency's
record for at-sea seizures in a single year.

Although the largest amount of drugs was confiscated in the Pacific
Ocean, the Caribbean region also saw a big jump and accounted for more
than half of the boats seized this year, said Lt. Anthony Russell , a
Coast Guard spokesman.

Coast Guard officials attribute the record-breaking numbers to better
intelligence and better equipment. The record, set last year, was
138,393 pounds of cocaine.

"With better intelligence and an increase in interagency and
international cooperation, we've been able to do more targeted
operations, which take less time and money than more frequent random
boardings," Russell said.

Just off the coast of South Florida, more than 2,000 pounds of cocaine
have been seized in the last six months.

In July, two Bahamian men were seven miles from Fort Lauderdale in a
26-foot pleasure boat when they were stopped as part of a routine
inspection. The Coast Guard found 300 pounds of cocaine -- worth $13.8
million on the street.

Two months earlier, the Coast Guard found 2,000 pounds of cocaine on
two twin outboards 10 miles off the coast of South Florida. Street
value: $92 million.

And just last week, in the Pacific Ocean, the Coast Guard made its
largest cocaine seizure ever: 29,000 pounds from the Lina Maria, a
shrimp-style fishing boat boarded just southwest of the Galapagos
Islands. A second, similar ship carried 27,000 pounds.

The jump in seizures could also be attributed to better equipment,
said Cmdr. Glenn Grahl of Tactical Law Enforcement Team South.

"We now have armed helicopters," Grahl said. "We have better
long-range aircraft. We have better small over-the-horizon boats, that
are faster and have better radar and better communications."

When it comes to drug smugglers, however, DEA officials say little has
changed.

The drugs most often smuggled continue to be cocaine and marijuana in
either freighters or go-fast boats, said Joe Kilmer, a DEA spokesman.

They're still leaving from the northern coast of Colombia, and they're
still going to the Caribbean -- usually Haiti, the Dominican Republic,
Bahamas and Jamaica. Once they reach the Caribbean, Kilmer said, the
cocaine is usually turned over to another person or boat before
heading toward the United States.

"The whole game, so to speak is just that, it's a game," he said.
"They do something, we react. There's nothing that we see that we
haven't seen before.'