CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (Border Report) — A U.S. Coast Guard twin-engine turboprop plane takes off on its nightly patrol over the Gulf looking for human and drug smugglers from Mexico, as well as illegal poaching.
Border Report flew with the crew of five on Thursday evening as they searched the vast waterways just north of the Mexican border looking for illegal activity, as well as anyone in distress.
The Coast Guard has historically conducted search and rescue operations in the Gulf, but maintaining law and order on the these waterways has been keeping “Coasties” (as they call themselves) busy lately as Mexican cartels have expanded their activities to include poaching red snapper north of the border.
Mexican fishermen, called lancheros, operate lanchas, or panga-like thin, 20- to 25-foot-long motorized boats that can reach speeds of 30 mph.
Mexican fishermen have been caught illegally catching red snapper up to 70 miles north of the maritime boundary line, which divides U.S. and Mexican waters in the Gulf, Coast Guard Lt. Commander Landon Elliott told Border Report.
“Our unit has historically worked on many cases of illegal fishing vessels that have come north of the maritime boundary line. And I believe the intelligence does suggest that those are operated by the cartels,” Elliott said just minutes before his crew took off from U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Corpus Christi.
Elliott led the five-man Coast Guard crew on Thursday’s three-hour patrol. He piloted the plane alongside a co-pilot. On board were also two radar technicians and a “drop master” in charge of dropping supplies from the plane into the water, if necessary.
They flew hundreds of miles and had on board sensitive classified high-tech radar equipment, which we weren’t allowed to photograph. But Elliot said it connects with a tethered Aerostat called “Argus” that operates from South Padre Island.
The data is relayed and studied and the crewmen on board were constantly telling Elliott what they were seeing and they would adjust their flight pattern to get closer to suspicious objects.
The equipment can pick up a Coke can from 40 miles, Elliot said.
“Our aircraft is equipped with very good sensors and radar technology, and our air crews in the back are very capable operators of that and we can scan a large swath of the ocean,” Elliott said. “We can put a camera on these vessels to check them out many times before they ever see or hear us.”
Any boats that appear to be lanchas they give a closer look.
“We can check those out with our cameras from quite a distance,” he said. “If it fits that profile, and we can tell that they are illegally operating and fishing in U.S. waters, then we’ll report that to the sector command center at our shore facilities, and work with our cutters and vessels, small boats, to make an interdiction and to stop those vessels north of the maritime boundary line,” he said.
During this patrol, there were no illegal fishing vessels found, but the radio was constantly crackling with warnings as the crew monitors up to six channels listening for activity happening throughout the area.
Each crew member performs multiple jobs. The pair monitoring the radar also help with plane maintenance and readying the craft for flight.
They also use the time in the air for training. On Thursday, they conducted two approaches to Harlingen’s Valley International Airport.
They maintained an altitude around 7,500 feet but dipped much closer to the Gulf to test opening of their back hatch at one point.
The drop master, who also is the plane’s mechanic, walked out into the opened hatch as fresh Gulf air streamed into what had been a stuffy and hot plane. He was tethered to a safety cord and can drop life-saving supplies like life vests, food, water and boat equipment parts.
Sometimes they have to drop supplies to Coast Guard cutter boats in the water that are making arrests or assists.
The lanchas often run without lights to avoid detection. They also lack safety gear and sometimes are way over capacity — packed with migrants they are trying to smuggle from Mexico in vessels designed to hold just a couple of people.
It’s not uncommon for the air crew to drop flotation devices or water to the cutter crew as they arrest and detain fishermen in lanchas, he said.
The plane can fly up to seven hours without needing to refuel and is swift and light, and although it can’t hover like a helicopter, it get to scenes quickly, Elliott said.
That’s helpful as Mexican cartels run all forms of drugs through these waterways, in all types of vessels, hoping not to get stopped, he said.
But red-snapper poaching has also become a big money-maker for the cartel.
“It used to be like a daily cat-and-mouse game, I felt like where we would routinely spot them north of the line and our aircraft and surface assets would work to interdict them to deter them south,” he said.
In June, four members of a Mexican fishing crew pleaded guilty to poaching almost 700 pounds of red snapper, as well as four sharks, in April about 18 miles north of the maritime boundary line in an area called the Exclusive Economic Zone in U.S. waters. They deployed 4 miles of longline containing 1,200 hooks about 25 miles east of South Padre Island, U.S. Attorney Nicholas Ganjei said.
The snapper was valued at $9,000 and the men face five years in U.S. prison and fines of $250,000 each.
They launched their boats from Playa Bagdad in Tamaulipas, Mexico, outside the town of Matamoros, and traveled north, the Coast Guard said.
Also in June, the Coast Guard along with Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations interdicted and detained 13 Mexican national fishermen north of the maritime boundary line in multiple lanchas with 1,500 pounds of red snapper, the Coast Guard said.
The Coast Guard says anyone witnessing suspicious activity or illegal fishing can contact Operation Game Thief at 1-800-792-GAME (4263). Or call the Coast Guard for suspicious activity or illegal fishing occurring in federal waters at 361-939-0450.
Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.
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