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.
Watch: Coast Guard steps up patrols along Rio Grande
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.
Special report: Smuggling attempts on water remain steady
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…