Coast Guard offloads $1 billion worth of cocaine, marijuana in South Florida

US Coast Guard offloads 70K pounds of seized cocaine, marijuana in South Florida

The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter James offloaded 54,500 pounds of cocaine and 15,800 pounds of marijuana at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday morning.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - The US Coast Guard offloaded more than $1 billion worth of cocaine and marijuana in South Florida on Thursday, one of its largest seizures to date.

The Coast Guard seized the drugs from traffickers during multiple interdictions at sea in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean.

The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter James brought the drugs to Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday morning.

Officials said they seized approximately 54,500 pounds of cocaine and 15,800 pounds of marijuana. The drugs have a street value of over $1.06 billion, officials said.

Capt. Todd Vance, the commanding officer of the James, said the crew seized a total of 30 metric tons of drugs "in their purest form," adding that it was the largest seizure in total tonnage for the vessel to date.

Aerial video from WSVN showed pallets of the confiscated drugs onboard the vessel before they were offloaded at the port.