U.S. Coast Guard officials seized more than 125 bales of cocaine in Florida, unloading a worth of roughly $350 million in street value on Tuesday, Fox News reported.
The 80-pound bricks were handed over to federal agents to be destroyed after being caught in two separate incidents in southwestern Caribbean waters on Tuesday.
According to the Miami Herald, the busts were part of Operation Martillo, an international effort to keep drugs from reaching American soil and abroad.
"We can safely assume that these drugs probably would have ended up here," U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Junior Grade Meaghan Gies told Miami Herald.
With a value of about $110 million in wholesale, the street worth of the drugs is usually three times that figure, according to Fox News.
Calling the combined bust to be "probably the biggest offload" in about a year, Gies awaited the arrival of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Legare on early Tuesday.
"Operation Martillion, which means hammer in Spanish, was launched in 2012 among countries such as the United States, Chile, Colombia and Costa Rica to stop drug shipments prior to reaching inland," Fox News reported.
In order to end smuggling operations, bilateral agreements are allowed for countries to board ships, Miami Herald reported.
"This seizure is just another successful example of our cooperation with our partners to maintain a forward presence in the Caribbean Sea," Marilyn Fajardo, deputy public affairs officer for the U.S. Coast Guard, told the Miami Herald. "This is one of our core missions."
Water is used as the main form of transport for roughly 80 percent of cocaine being smuggled into the U.S., Gies said.
"The idea is to stop it before it is broken up into smaller parts and distributed," she said.
On March 15, the first bust took place roughly 100 miles south of Jamaica. Four days later, the Legare intercepted a go-fast boat in the waters between Colombia and Honduras, Fox News reported.
