Dockworkers and reporters watched as the crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Tahoma stacked bale after bale of cocaine at Port Everglades, the final tally landing at roughly 3,622 pounds of narcotics pulled from two separate interdictions in the Caribbean Sea. Four people were taken into custody as part of those operations, now facing the fallout of a drug run that never made it to shore on their terms.
A Port Everglades Offload With a Seven-Figure Price Tag
According to a DVIDS image release, Tahoma's crew offloaded approximately 3,622 pounds of cocaine at Port Everglades, Florida, following two interdictions in the Caribbean Sea that also resulted in the apprehension of four detainees. A separate DVIDS video tied the same weight of narcotics, valued at approximately $27 million, to a Port Everglades seizure, though the available record does not make clear whether that reference describes a distinct stage of the operation or simply restates the same haul. The cutter itself is described as a 270-foot medium endurance ship homeported at Naval Station Newport in Rhode Island, according to the same video.
Fort Lauderdale station WPEC likewise reported on the 3,622-pound offload and the detainees connected to the operation, putting a local lens on a bust that began far from South Florida's coastline. The station's report lines up with the federal account of the seized weight, even as the exact sequencing of the case plays out across multiple government releases.
Tracing the Bust Back to Waters South of the Dominican Republic
Part of the haul traces back to October 5, when the crew of USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul and an embarked Coast Guard tactical law enforcement team interdicted a suspected drug-smuggling vessel about 100 miles south of the Dominican Republic, per a DVIDS account of that operation. That interdiction alone yielded approximately 3,622 pounds of cocaine, with an estimated combined value of $27 million, the same dossier entry states. The image release's headline described the haul as worth more than $27 million, even though the accompanying text put the estimated combined value at $27 million even — a discrepancy the available reporting does not resolve.
The photograph documenting the Port Everglades offload carries a credit to Petty Officer 3rd Class Rashaad Reid, per the same DVIDS release. It is a routine but telling detail in operations like this one, where the paper trail of captions and credits often outlasts the headlines generated by the drugs themselves.
How It Stacks Up Against Recent Caribbean Busts
This offload joins a string of similar hauls moving through South Florida ports in recent months. In April 2026, the Coast Guard Cutter Resolute's crew offloaded approximately 2,570 pounds of cocaine worth more than $19.3 million and transferred six suspected drug smugglers to federal authorities, according to a U.S. Coast Guard press release. A year earlier, in April 2025, the Cutter Tampa's crew offloaded approximately 3,750 pounds of cocaine and marijuana worth an estimated $12.3 million at Port Everglades, according to a separate U.S. Coast Guard release. Those earlier operations offer a point of comparison in scale and value, though the available evidence does not establish any broader trend connecting them to this week's Tahoma offload.
What remains clear is the basic shape of the case: a multi-agency interdiction effort, a four-figure weight in pounds, and a dockside offload in Fort Lauderdale that turned a Caribbean pursuit into a very public pile of seized narcotics. Four detainees are now tied to the two interdictions that fed into the total, though the record reviewed does not specify which individuals correspond to which leg of the operation.
