912 Pounds of Pot Found in Santa Monica Bay
A boater spots the marijuana floating at sea about six miles northwest of the Marina del Rey harbor.
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Thirty-five bales of marijuana weighing nearly half a ton were found floating about six miles northwest of the Marina del Rey harbor, officials said Thursday.
A recreational boater headed to Marina del Rey on his way back from Santa Barbara came across five floating bales of pot about noon Wednesday and called the U.S. Coast Guard, said Sgt. Michael Carriles of the sheriff's Marina del Rey station.
Sheriff's marine patrol deputies responded to the area with the Los Angeles County Fire Baywatch and found 30 more packages, Carriles said. The bales weighed about 912 pounds and had an estimated street value of roughly $500,000, Carriles said.
There has been an increase in illegal drug smuggling along the Southern California over the past year, but this is the first case involving the Marina del Rey station, Carriles said.
The marijuana was taken to the Marina del Rey station and then transferred to the custody of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The case remains under investigation.
Eddie Greenberg
7:07 pm on Thursday, February 2, 2012
This story is beyond amazing! So much marijuana and it is found in Santa Monica Bay. Hopefully some better plans for policing the drug trade here are being contemplated. Just a few months ago a Cessna took off from S.M. airport and landed in Illinois. The plane was searched upon landing and seventy-five pounds of marijuana were discovered originating from here. This was reported in the SM Patch. Last year's crime rate statistics given to us by the SMPD did not record a single drug crime of any kind in our city.Unusual. In fact they are pounding their chests that crime is going down. Looking at it from every objective angle it is impossible to believe. Whitey Bulger who it is alledged killed nineteen people and who was comfortably retired in Santa Monica in a rent controlled apt. for some fifteen years lived without any police detection; and he frequented all of the public places including Starbuck's on Wilshire and enjoyed his peaceful stay here on the lam. Security cameras on The Third Street Promenade and the Pier found that Whitey was invisible. I know that it is impossible for the police to be everywhere, but their assertion that crime was down by 9% seems more like wishful thinking to me than a factual reality. The mis-use of the police dept. for escorting handicapped people out of council meetings or wasting valuable staff time on "investigating" Oscar de La Torre, his family and his employees, furthur erodes public confidence of which SMPD can ill afford to loose.
J Edward Tipre
2:03 pm on Friday, February 3, 2012
Pot is the least of our concerns except that all illicit drug trading involves possible violence. Cocaine, Heroin, and the illicit use of pharmaceuticals obtain as the larger problems. If North Americans, many in West Los Angeles no doubt, would stop using, then Mexicans (many forced off farms by NAFTA and other failed policies) and others in the trade might stop showing up off our coast with "pleasure" drugs for Americans.
omar pena
4:39 pm on Friday, February 3, 2012
Oh, cut the b.s. That pot is so crusty compared to pharmaceutic grade, 98 % of that load was intended for poor inner city minorities. They get about as much pleasure out of it that life as stepping in a pile of dog crap in your Alfani's. Most street marijuana user are undisciplined school kids experimenting with a gateway drug being made available to them by opportunist trash that don't like claiming income on tax forms but want a better automobile. Their ambition is driven by the ignorance of people like you who prefer scuttling nets to catch them with your talk nafta. They just want to talk about how easy it is even if you do get busted with Drug possession with intent to sell- the overcrowding of the system works to their advantage as they will only serve one day behind bars for every day they are sentenced to. That works out well, then they can go back to work, you know...on the farm.