Capt Morgan's
Banned
Yeah, I was going to say that there's probably not one piece of ASW gear in the Customs bird, too. But BZ on them getting 'em.
Um, I know just by the sheer nature that it's in the press, the facts are jacked up, but I'm not coming up w/ the same math they did:
1 bale = about 20 kilos
11 bales = 220 kilos
1 kilo = about $20000
220 * $20000 = $4400000 = $4.4 million
Even if you make that a street value (multiply by about 4, last I heard), that's still only $16+ million.
Or did I forget to carry a one? I'm always doing that...
I called and asked my father about this as he is a retired Customs Agent.
#1 - he said to his knowledge the Customs P-3 retains very little of the Navy's version of a P-3 and is setup to be more like an AWACS then anything else and is used primarily for searching for low flying aircraft.
#2 - his comment about the really high value of the coke was that it was "typical" to see such an exagerated number, he stated a lot of that number has to do with who was on the scene first. He stated that the Coast Guard may stack the coke into a different sized bundle then the Navy would and yet again different from how the DEA would. Without a photo of the bundles he said it would be hard to tell how many kilo's per bundle. Second he said everyone is going to take credit for the bust so each department/agency will issue a different value to the overall bust, coast guard may be including the value of the sub, equipment on it, manpower etc... He said that DEA will typically issue a value not off what it is worth per kilo but what the end sale value would be and that in some cases can be significally higher apparently then just what the plain product is worth.
He also stated that in 30+ years he rarely ever saw a true "pure" shipment and if that was actually the case in this instance then it could be attributing to the high value number.
Overall he said all the agencies would pick a high number to help show/justify the resources that are being expended to track these guys down.