Nearly a year after deploying more ships and aircraft to the waters around South and Central America, the Navy and Coast Guard continue to make multi-ton drug busts, and their personnel are engaging suspected smugglers on a daily basis, the top U.S military commander in the region said in January.

U.S. Southern Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the region, began enhanced counternarcotics operations on April 1, acting on a directive from then-President Donald Trump to further disrupt the flow of drugs to the United States.

Since then, Navy destroyers, littoral combat ships, and helicopters, Coast Guard cutters and helicopters, and Navy and Air Force patrol and reconnaissance planes have increased their presence in the region.

At the Surface Navy Association symposium in mid-January, Adm. Craig Faller, head of Southern Command, said the sailors involved “are making a difference.”

US Coast Guard helicopter HITRON Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron warning shots
A Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron crew demonstrates warning shots fired at a non-compliant boat, September 24, 2009. (U.S. Coast Guard/Petty Officer 3rd Class Michael Hulme)

Faller said he had met with destroyer crews who took part in counternarcotics patrols. The patrols usually last for 60 to 70 days and they integrate the Coast Guard crews throughout.

“We do detection and monitoring. That’s our mission, so we use the intelligence to find the threat, track the threat, and then Coast Guard law enforcement… do the actual interdiction and detention,” Faller said, calling it “a very good mashup” between the two services.

“Coast Guard HITRON teams, which are sniper teams, have integrated into U.S. Navy helicopters. So our Navy crews are involved in decisions to use… warning shots and disabling fire daily. I mean, it is a daily event,” Faller added. “We average numbers, sometimes large numbers, of events daily, and they’ve done it safely, effectively, completely in compliance with all the law of war and with precision. [I’m] very proud of that.”

The Coast Guard is a military branch, but unlike the other service branches, it has law-enforcement authority, and Coast Guard crews have long been on the frontline against high-seas drug trafficking.