Off South America, traffickers over the years have been traversing territory so big the continental United States could be dropped inside of it, according to the Associated Press.
The area where boats were seized off California and the northwest coast of Mexico tripled to a size comparable to the state of Montana during the 2013 fiscal year, which ended in September, the AP reported.
Meanwhile, budget cuts have hit one of the lead U.S. law enforcement agencies on international waters, the Coast Guard, the only U.S. military service able to make drug arrests hundreds of miles offshore, according to the AP.
Only a third of suspected drug smuggling boats or aircraft out of South America that were tracked by U.S. intelligence in cocaine-trafficking corridors in the Pacific and Caribbean were stopped last year, the Coast Guard's top officer, Adm. Robert Papp, told the AP.
"Our interdictions are down 30 percent from the year before, when we had more assets out there, so that's an indicator to me that as soon as we start pulling assets away, they're running more drugs and they're getting through," Papp said, according to the AP.
U.S. authorities stopped some 194,000 pounds of cocaine last fiscal year, almost more than 40,000 pounds less than in 2012, according to Coast Guard statistics, the AP reported. Marijuana seizures dipped between 2012 and 2013 from 124,000 pounds to 81,000 pounds.
Defense officials have warned the cuts would hamper efforts to reach the president's goal of intercepting 40 percent of the illicit drug shipments flowing into the region by 2015, according to the AP.
Fighting drug traffickers at sea is crucial because small aircraft used by traffickers can only carry about a ton of drugs versus large boats that can cart up to 20 tons of cocaine or more, authorities said, the AP reported.
As much as 20 percent of the cocaine moving through South America ends up in the United States, according to the AP. Large amounts also travel across the ocean into Africa, providing funding for insurgents and drug traffickers, and then on up into Europe.
"We've had to cut back in hours and funding, and cut back on resources on the water," said Commander Chris German, deputy chief of law enforcement for the 11th District, which stretches from Oregon to Peru, the AP reported.
"The Coast Guard's aircraft and ships have cut back on fuel, so every hour we're not in the air or on the water, it does leave a gap," German told the AP.
Even so, sea smuggling has not grabbed the attention of lawmakers like the flow of illegal goods across the land border, where billions have been spent on beefing up security. Part of the reason is the challenge to patrolling the ocean, according to the AP.
