The Coast Guard signing of the 2014 Western Hemisphere Strategy committed to a ten-year strategic plan and reaffirmed its promise to work with U.S. federal and international partners to combat the ever-growing transoceanic drug smuggling problem. Prior to the 1981 Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Act, drug-trafficking organizations exploited gaps in U.S. policy and operated with little to no maritime resistance. Contributing to the problem, the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act (PCA), made it a crime for the U.S. military to be involved with any type of policing action.[i] The unintended consequence of the PCA was that the Coast Guard and Navy were unable to conduct joint law enforcement operations and enforce U.S. and international laws. The multilayered bureaucracy created by the PCA impeded counterdrug operations and allowed drug cartels to move cocaine from Central and South America to the United States with very little if any resistance. Amid a growing national drug problem, the United States later passed the 1981 Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Officials Act. This act allowed the Department of Defense (DoD) and Navy (under Coast Guard control) to leverage the strength of their partnerships and employ a more modernized, capable, and technological force to counter the growing drug epidemic. The formation of two highly specialized Coast Guard units known as Tactical Law Enforcement Team (TacLET) and Helicopter Interdiction Squadron (HITRON) was the first step in cooperation between the Navy and the Coast Guard.
Mission Critical
As today’s mission has evolved, so has TacLet and HITRON. Both units are geared toward targeting the resources of well-organized maritime drug smuggling cartels. Central and South American drug cartels are well structured and use an elaborate smuggling program that takes advantage of open ocean to push 70–80 percent of their product through the maritime environment. As the Coast Guard adapts to the changing maritime threat, drug cartels have responded by adjusting their own structure and methods of transportation. The maritime routes themselves are difficult to disrupt and have enabled smugglers to bring billions of dollars of cocaine into the United States. Further exasperating the drug epidemic, a 2015 Colombian court banned the use of aerial spraying of coca fields. The largest producer of coca leaves could no longer attack production using what had become a controversial herbicide called glyphosate, placing an even greater demand on Coast Guard and Navy assets. To make things even worse, drug cartels are continually adapting their own smuggling techniques to avoid detection.
Adaptive Criminal Threat
Driven to thwart the success experienced by drug cartels, TacLET and HITRON were formed to counter the maritime transportation of illegal narcotics. Drug trafficking in South America expands through the Eastern Pacific, Caribbean, and Atlantic Oceans and used a multitude of transportation methods. The United States Coast Guard was charged with disrupting maritime drug routes and interdicting the Cartels method of transportation. With roughly 70–80 percent of the drug industries product transiting maritime routes, it was important to establish a multiagency approach toward interdiction. Relying on a new-found partnership, the Navy and Coast Guard were able to respond to the adaptive transportation method used by narcotic traffickers. Today, the . Navy, Coast Guard, and U.S. allies contend with myriad smuggling techniques. Self-propelled semi-submersibles (SPSS), low-profile vessels (LPV), and go-fasts are all used to avoid detection. While SPSSs and LPVs sit low in the water with only a coning tower exposed and are difficult to detect, go-fasts, are low profile, overpowered vessels that depend on speed and stealth to avoid detection. Still the most popular method of transportation, go-fasts are loaded down with fuel and cocaine and often transit up to 1,500 miles of open ocean, making them nearly impossible for Coast Guard legacy cutters to detect and stop. The difficult interdictions and the multitude of vessels used by smugglers, inspired the formation of both TacLET and HITRON.
Credit: U.S. Coast Guard
TacLET History
TacLET consists of two units broken down into deployable specialized teams know as Law Enforcement Detachment Program (LEDet). The Coast Guard started the LEDet program in 1982 and operated it directly under Coast Guard districts until they began working with the Navy, deployed on board vessels operating in areas of known drug trafficking. As the program continued to grow, the 1990s saw the evolution of the LEDet program into what is now referred to as TacLET South and Pacific Area TacLET (PacTacLET). The importance of a Navy/TacLET partnerships has never been clearer. If the United States and its allies were going to attack the maritime transportation of cocaine, the Navy, working with TacLETs, would need to leverage their relationship and employ Coast Guard/Navy resources in a manner that adjusts its techniques to a very hardened and determined cocaine threat.
HITRON History
Still undeterred by Coast Guard TacLET success and realizing the need for continued counterdrug operations, the Coast Guard began to look internally. The Coast Guard estimated that it was still stopping less than 10 percent of illegal narcotics transported within the maritime environment. Alarmed by this failing trend, in 1998 Coast Guard Commandant Admiral James Loy directed the development of a plan to further counter the threat from the highly maneuverable go-fast. The Coast Guard’s legacy cutters were unable to stop the high-speed, maneuverable go-fasts preventing right-of-visit boardings (ROVs)—the first step when determining a vessel’s nationality. If the Coast Guard was going to make a difference in the war on drugs, it would need a new strategy.
In an effort to use armed aircraft to stop go-fasts, Commander Mark Torres formed a small group of ten volunteers known as the HITRON-10. In March of 1999, the Coast Guard deployed two armed MH-90 (Enforcers) to Coast Guard cutters Gallatin (WHEC-721) and Seneca (WMEC-906). At the completion of a six-month deployment, they had interdicted 20 smugglers, 3,014 pounds of cocaine, and 11,710 pounds of marijuana. A small investment of $10 million had netted more than $130 million in seized drugs, becoming the first successful test of an airborne use of force asset. After a successful test and as a temporary solution to fight the war on drugs and fill needed resources for the airborne use of force non-compliant vessel (AUF-NCV) mission, the Coast Guard leased eight MH-68A Stingray helicopters and contracted civilian maintainers at cost of $12 million per year. Then again in 2008, the Coast Guard reassessed its capability and transitioned to an originally owned and operated helicopter. The MH-65 Dolphin helicopter became the chosen aircraft to replace the MH-68A Stingray. Today, the Coast Guard has a multitude of platforms and capabilities, including its most recent addition, the MH-60T Jayhawk helicopters.
Expanding Airborne Use of Force
In 2019 the Coast Guard successfully removed 207.9 metric tons of cocaine and more than 63,000 pounds of marijuana from the transit zone. The Coast Guard has been able to adapt to the success of smuggling vessels by improving asset capability and DoD cooperation. When the Coast Guard introduced TacLET and the use of armed helicopters as a way of interdicting and disrupting maritime trafficking, it became one of the nation’s most valuable assets in the war on drugs. Today, this process is known as AUF-NCV and has expanded to include a multitude of assets and agencies. The first of their kind, TacLET and HITRON will provided a blueprint for all nations to continue to refine and improve their AUF-NCV mission.
Endnotes
[i] Army Appropriations Act, ch. 263, § 15, 20 Stat. 145, 152 (1878) (codified as amended at 18 U.S.C. § 1385 (2000))
