A local US Coast Guard crew is scheduled to return to Alameda after they seized more than $183 million worth of illegal narcotics during a 140-day deployment Monday at 8 a.m.
The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf was deployed to the Eastern Pacific Ocean off the coast of Central and South America in support of Joint Interagency Task Force-South counter-drug operations. During the deployment, Bertholf’s crew detained a number of suspicious vessels and suspects and seized more than 12,000 pounds of illegal narcotics.
The Cutter Bertholf is commanded by Capt. Mark Frankford. Bertholf’s crew routinely conducts operations from South America to the Bering Sea where the cutter’s unmatched combination of range, speed, and ability to operate in extreme weather provide the mission flexibility necessary to conduct alien migrant interdiction operations, domestic fisheries protection, search and rescue, counter-narcotics and other Coast Guard missions at great distances from shore keeping threats far from the U.S. mainland.
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