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“The shrimp boat disappeared into the fog without identifying us, thanks to the rain squall. I kept her within radar range ...”
A little after 0800 on 27 November, I went below to get some rest. The Coast Guard patrol boat Cape Upright (WPB-95303) and ber 13-man crew had quietly departed Savannah, Georgia, at midnight. Once offshore, we had raced down the coast ®nd moored to an offshore buoy east of Sapelo Sound at 0515—in position to intercept any outbound vessel traffic. After several hectic hours, I now had a few moments for quiet thought.
Sure hope we don’t blow this one, I b°ught. Customs had worked around be clock putting the case together over ute Thanksgiving holiday. When I first took over as commanding officer of the j~aPe Upright, Savannah Customs had . een hesitant to share law enforcement ^formation with the Coast Guard. The Loast Guard often inadvertently tipped °tf smugglers by changing the readi- bess conditions of its vessels in its overeagerness to respond to hot tips.
ecasionally, as well, a Coast Guard putter would make an offshore “bust” used on Georgia Customs’s informa- ton but take the seized vessel into charleston, South Carolina, since the °ast Guard Group Command for both e°rgia and South Carolina was loCated there. South Carolina Customs w°uld then receive credit for the seiZure, and Georgia Customs would have Nothing to show for its hard work. This to not make Georgia Customs eager to
c°operate.
Conversely, the Coast Guard was C°bcerned about an unnecessary dupli- jUlion of effort. I did not want to run bto Customs’s small patrol boats off- °re in an area we were already cov- lng. We eventually reached an agree- pent- Jerry Mooney, head of Customs catr°l in Savannah, said that he would ncentrate his resources on developing u°bfidential informants (CIs) and doing Jtoercover work. He would also cut ck on boat patrols in order to have jn°re Patrol officers walking the docks.
uddition, Jerry said he would give Sch 3 C0f)y his weekly boat patrol a edule so I could adjust my patrols ai|tC)rdmgly. In turn, I agreed to take nah Customs’s information back to Savannah. Jerry would do what Customs does best (undercover work), and 1 would do what the Coast Guard does best (offshore patrols).
I considered our current situation. It had been completely a Customs case up to now. Earlier in the week, a Customs agent had followed a panel truck with out-of-state plates to a campground on the shore of Sapelo Sound, near Brunswick, Georgia. Customs Patrol agents entered the campground the following morning posing as campers. Usually, Georgia campgrounds are deserted in late November. This campground hosted a group of Hispanic men driving vehicles with out-of-state plates. Customs maintained surveillance of the campground.
At about the same time, Customs received a tip from a Cl that the 75- foot fishing boat Gigi was planning to make a run sometime soon. A Customs agent maintained surveillance of the Gigi from the attic of a building near the dock.
Activity increased at the campground. The Customs agent observing the Gigi saw her crew remove all her fishing gear and load groceries on board. Meanwhile, Customs had also placed a nearby motel under surveillance, after following vehicles from the campground to the motel.
At 1500 on 26 November, I had received word that the operation was a “go.” Customs had called and said they had just received information from a Cl that the Gigi would depart Sapelo Sound at 0400 the following morning. The Gigi was supposed to rendezvous with a mother ship somewhere off the Georgia coast on 27 November.
Based on previous discussions, 1 knew Jerry would want me to let the Gigi make it all the way back into Sapelo Sound with the load of drugs on board. That would make his case airtight. My job would be to take down the mother ship. Accomplishing this task would be difficult. Out on the ocean, there are no bushes to hide behind. Our mission was to follow a shrimp boat on the open ocean in daylight and observe a multiton drug offload without being seen. The worst thing that could happen, from Customs point of view, would be for the Gigi to spot the Cape Upright prematurely and return to home port prior to rendezvousing with the mother ship. Customs could make a good case without Coast Guard assistance by simply waiting for the Gigi to return to the campground with the load of drugs on board. By upping the ante and risking Coast Guard participation, the results would either be an unprecedented, spectacular mother ship bust, or none at all.
The cabin phone interrupted my thoughts. I received a call from the bridge. “Skipper, I have a radar contact departing the Sound.”
“I’ll be right up,” I replied. Glancing at my watch I saw that it was almost 0930. Customs had reported that the Gigi had left her dock on schedule at 0400, but so far no vessel had departed the Sound. Unfortunately, the Customs boat that was assigned to tail the Gigi inside the Sound had quickly lost sight of her in the dense fog. 1 had to assume that the departing vessel was the Gigi.
Scrambling up to the bridge, I noticed that the fog had not lifted. Visibility was a quarter-mile or less. Customs had advised me that their Cl had warned that the Gigi was to abort the run if she sighted a Coast Guard cutter or any suspicious radar contact. Therefore, I had taken the precaution of mooring the Cape Upright to buoy “2S.” I anticipated that both the buoy’s and the cutter’s radar returns would merge as one blip on the Gigi’s radar, and she should sail past us in the fog.
With increasing apprehension, I watched as the radar contact I assumed to be the Gigi approached. Buoy “2S” was several miles off the coast. The odds of the Gigi passing within sight of the buoy in the thick fog had seemed remote. Yet the radar contact was not changing course. 1 had previously shut down the engines to make sure the Gigi could not hear us. At 1,500 yards, I told the senior chief engineer to “light ’em off.” I decided that if the Gigi did not change course by the 1,000-yard mark, we would slip our line off the buoy and move away.
I knew that as soon as we moved away from the buoy, the Gigi would pick up the “split” on her radar. I wondered what 1 would tell Jerry. It looked like his gamble was going to fail because I had gotten too cute and tried to hide behind a buoy. Glued to the radar, I wished for some real bushes to hide behind.
Desperately, I groped for a solution. The Gigi was only 1,000 yards away!
The answer came not a moment too soon. An intense rain squall was rap-
er
0c«dings / April 1990
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Proceedings / April
idly approaching and was blanking out a large circle on the radar. If the squall made it to the buoy before the Gigi, we just might be able to slip away undetected. As the Gigi approached within 500 yards, we slipped our mooring line off the buoy. Gunning the throttles, I moved the cutter rapidly away to the north under cover of the squall.
The shrimp boat was barely discernible for a few seconds before she disappeared back into the fog. I anxiously waited to see if the Gigi would turn around and head home. She never changed course. She passed within 100 yards of the buoy yet did not identify the Cape Upright just a few hundred yards farther north. The rain squall had done the trick.
Throughout the day, I kept darting the Cape Upright from rain squall to rain squall, keeping the Gigi within radar range. A typical surface search radar can see out of a closely packed rain squall but cannot see into one. We had found some bushes to hide behind after all.
Maintaining communications with Customs and Drug Enforcement Agency aircraft, we discovered the Gigi was on course to meet a large ship about 30 miles off the Georgia coast. After several false starts, the Gigi headed southeast and rendezvoused with a 300-foot freighter at 1740. We eventually identified the freighter as the Lago Izabal, registered out of Georgetown, Grand Cayman Islands.
It was dusk when we moved in to watch the offload. Visibility had improved to about five miles outside of the rain squalls. We maneuvered in and out of squalls, observing the offload with binoculars and a night-vision scope. We could see people throwing bales from the freighter to the shrimp boat. We later discovered that 14 tons of marijuana were offloaded onto the Gigi in less than two hours.
At 1930, the Gigi and Lago Izabal separated. Playing “split” on the radar, I maneuvered the cutter between the two vessels and radioed for help. Savannah’s Coast Guard Station Tybee sent a 41-foot utility boat to Sapelo Sound to follow the Gigi. I turned the Cape Upright back to sea to attempt to run down the fleeing freighter.
As the Gigi entered Sapelo Sound, the Customs boat moved out to meet her, while the Coast Guard boat sealed the fishing boat’s only escape route.
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All at once the Gigi stopped. The overloaded boat had run aground. Not willing to wait any longer, Jerry Mooney ordered the combined law enforcement agencies to move in and arrest all suspects.
The crews of both the Customs and Coast Guard boats stormed aboard the Gigi, seizing the vessel and arresting her seven-man crew. At the campground and motel, 22 men were arrested. Four trucks, two passenger cars, a motorhome, and a van were also seized.
Meanwhile back at sea, the fleeing freighter’s huge lead was quickly disappearing. With both big 149 GM diesel engines roaring, the Cape Upright rapidly closed the gap. At 2310, the cutter pulled alongside the freighter. Speaking both English and Spanish, we repeatedly hailed the fugitive freighter on VHF-FM radio and through a bullhorn. Fler master refused to answer. Later, a Lago Izabal crew member told a Customs agent that they heard the Cape Upright calling, but the master would not let them answer because he was loco (crazy).
The master, Captain Domingo Borja-Melendez, had jumped bail after two previous arrests for smuggling illegal drugs into the United States. Coast Guard Seventh District’s Office of Intelligence and Law Enforcement had received reliable information that Captain Melendez had boasted that he would not be stopped again without a fight.
The Cape Upright prepared for a gun battle. Nighttime warning shots fired across the freighter’s bow had no noticeable effect.
By daylight on the 28th, the Lago Izabal was almost 200 miles off the coast. She had a huge advantage in endurance. The Cape Upright had to stop the freighter soon. We were rapidly approaching our “point of no return” fuel state. Unfortunately, there were no larger Coast Guard or Navy ships within 500 miles that could assist. The 82-foot patrol boat Point Roberts (WPB-82332) was dispatched from Mayport, Florida, but she had less endurance than the Cape Upright. If the Upright could not stop the Lago Izabal by noon, the Point Roberts would have to return to base because of her own fuel limitations.
Intending to use deadly force only as a last resort, I relied on the Cape Upright's speed and maneuverability to try to foul the Lago Izabal's propeller.
Tying lifejackets to each end of a 300- foot towline, we dropped the line directly across the freighter’s bow. She sheered wildly, unsuccessfully trying to both avoid the towline and collide with us, which would have badly damaged the cutter.
We avoided the Lago Izabal whenever she turned toward us. Standing off, we watched as the towline passed down the freighter’s side and was sucked into her screw—only to be spit out in pieces a minute or two later. Retrieving the line, we tried several more times with no better luck.
Meanwhile, a Coast Guard C-130 arrived on scene and dropped smoke flares across the freighter’s path. She maneuvered to avoid the flares without slowing down. By 1130, it was clear we would have to use disabling gunfire.
Warning the Lago Izabal’s crew to move all the way forward, we fired 50 armor-piercing .50-caliber machine gun rounds into the freighter’s stern. Suddenly, she veered to port, apparently at left full rudder. After a half an hour of running in tight circles to port, the Lago Izabal surrendered at 1240. We later learned the gunfire had severed a hydraulic steering line.
At 1625, the Point Roberts arrived on scene, and teams from both Coast Guard vessels boarded the Lago Izabal- They seized the freighter and arrested all nine crew members. Sixteen tons of marijuana remained in the freighter’s cavernous holds. Records showed that she had previously offloaded off New Jersey and Virginia prior to rendezvousing with the Gigi. Sophisticate® electronics equipment, including a wid® array of VHF-FM radio scanners crys- talized for Coast Guard frequencies, were found on board. Luckily, the smugglers did not have Customs radio frequencies.
All told, this case cost 37 smuggled more than $150 million and as many &s 14 years in a federal penitentiary.
When Customs does what it does best and the Coast Guard does what it does best, the combined results can be spe®' tacular!
Lieutenant Colvin is currently serving as operations officer on board the USCGC Midgett (WHEC-726). He is a former commanding offfcf* of the patrol boat Cape Upright (WPB-95303)- ** has also served as a deck watch officer on board USCGC Morgenthau (WHEC-722), and as Sent°r Rescue Coordination Center Controller for the combined Twelfth Coast Guard District, Pacific Area Operations Center.
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