Stopping drug smugglers at sea takes precision, not luck. Here's the Coast Guard's playbook.

"Day in and day out, the Coast Guard is out on patrol for boats packed with hundreds of thousands of pounds of cocaine, marijuana, and other drugs, illegal narcotics with street values in the millions. Finding these drug boats on the open isn't chance, officials said. It's all carefully orchestrated, from the intelligence-gathering to the drone flights to the precision shots from a helicopter needed to cripple the engine of a vessel on the run."

"The service follows a strict step-by-step process, relying on the training and experience of its pilots, precision marksmen, boarding teams, and other personnel. In recent years, the Coast Guard has been seizing record numbers of drugs from its interdictions during deployments in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean, but drug smugglers out of South America keep them on their toes. "The threat from narcotics traffickers and narco-terrorists is constantly evolving,""

Coast Guard personnel patrol the Caribbean and eastern Pacific searching for vessels carrying hundreds of thousands of pounds of cocaine, marijuana, and other narcotics with multimillion-dollar street values. Operations rely on coordinated intelligence, drone and aircraft surveillance, helicopter precision shots to disable fleeing engines, and trained crews including pilots, marksmen, and boarding teams following strict step-by-step procedures. Seizures have reached record levels during recent deployments, while smugglers continually adapt routes and vessel types, shifting from go-fast boats to semi-submersibles. Crews monitor 'targets of interest' using indicators such as onboard packages and passenger counts to prioritize interdiction and maintain maritime security.

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