Smuggling means transportation of illegal goods from one place to another place. Smuggling can be done through many routes and maritime route is one of them. Very less amount of drugs are smuggled through this route. Private maritime vessels is a common method to move illegal drugs into the United States
Drugs are smuggled to U.S market mainly through Rico, South Florida, South Texas, and Southern California. Smugglers smuggle drugs by maritime means to avoid law enforcement security. Caribbean-based traffickers who exploit Puerto Rico and Florida coastlines are the major maritime smugglers. They mostly smuggle cocaine, heroin, and marijuana from the Bahamas to areas of South Florida.
Incidents like packages of cocaine and marijuana found along South Texas coastline and recovery of 114 kilograms cocaine showed that smugglers are using maritime routes to smuggle. In 2009, smugglers introduced a new way to smuggle via maritime routes. They started to smuggle illicit drugs by commercial maritime vessel. It is a viable passage for smuggling drugs directly into US. According to law enforcement report, this smuggling method continues to be a small portion of the nation’s illicit drug supply.
Commercial maritime seizure data for 2004 through 2009 states that Cocaine and Marijuana are mostly smuggled by commercial maritime vessels. This method is mainly practiced in Caribbean locations like Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Jamaica, and New Jersey. Law enforcement reports confirm that Caribbean and South American traffickers use commercial maritime vessels more than Mexican traffickers.
Despite the law enforcement, smuggling is being perused in U.S. Year after year, new methods are introduced by the smuggler. The drug smuggling problem mostly affects Mexico and U.S.
Source: National Drug Threat Assessment (NADT) report