Coast Guard award recognizes focus on high seas cocaine-trafficking prosecutions – The San Diego Union-Tribune

For the second time in three years, a San Diego U.S. attorney was honored with the Coast Guards highest civilian award for prosecutions targeting cocaine traffickers on the high seas.

Former U.S. Attorney Robert Brewer accepted the Distinguished Public Service Award earlier this month from Rear Adm. Brian Penoyer, a district commander, on behalf of the agencys commandant. It is the guards highest public honor, other than the gold and silver lifesaving medals.

In 2018, then-U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman a career drug prosecutor who had been approved by Congress to fill in between official Obama and Trump nominees received the same award. Brewer succeed Braverman as President Donald Trumps pick, and he served for two years before resigning at the end of February with the change in administrations.

Both awards illustrate the ramped up focus on the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The route has shifted to the east over the past few decades as trafficking organizations sought to avoid heavy drug enforcement on the once dominant Caribbean route, and as cocaine producers realized it was cheaper to outsource its smuggling to Mexican cartels.

Bulk cocaine often goes by sea from South and Central America, then is offloaded on spots along Mexicos western coast before being smuggled on established land corridors through the U.S.-Mexico border.

Former U.S. Attorney Robert Brewer speaks at a news conference in this 2020 file photo in San Diego.

(Ariana Drehsler/For The San Diego Union-Tribune)

As Coast Guard and Navy operations have expanded in the area, so have interdictions. In fiscal 2019 the Coast Guard seized 175 metric tons from the Eastern Pacific, with much of the contraband found on sleek, low-profile and go-fast vessels designed to blend into the ocean horizon.

In April 2020, Trump ordered an enforcement surge in the Western hemisphere, spurring accompanying prosecutions in San Diego. The results: the conviction of six defendants in two jury trials, the prosecution of crewmembers aboard 20 vessels and the arrests of key organizers in Central and South America, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

One semi-submersible vessel stopped more than 500 nautical miles off Central America in August 2020 was loaded with more than 2,000 kilograms of cocaine worth an estimated $35 million, prosecutors said. Its operator, a Colombian national, had already been convicted and served prison time in the U.S. for similar exploits.

The overall prosecutorial effort effectively stymied the flow of maritime smuggling and delivered a major setback to numerous drug trafficking organizations, the award states.

During Brewers tenure, the U.S. Attorneys Office indicted 125 high-level targets as investigators worked up the chain of command, and dismantled major organizations in Colombia, Ecuador and Guatemala, the award states. Also seized in connection with the San Diego-based investigations were 45 metric tons of cocaine and $4.5 million in bulk cash.

One of those targets is Iram Adonas Mrida Cobn, who was extradited to San Diego earlier this month on a 2019 federal grand jury indictment charging him with an international conspiracy to distribute cocaine.

The Coast Guard seizes a semi-submersible off the coast of Central America in August 2020 carrying 2,000 kilograms of cocaine.

(Courtesy of U.S. Attorneys Office)

Mrida Cobn, who goes by the nicknames El Dorado or Bucfalo, was arrested by Guatemalan authorities in April at an upscale shopping center in Guatemala City.

The U.S. indictment does not include details of the case. However, the Guatemalan government said he and his partners in a criminal organization are suspected of transporting multiple tons of cocaine from South America through Central America and Mexico to be distributed in the United States. The group has been under investigation since 2016.

At the award ceremony on Dec. 15, Brewer reflected on the honor.

This very special award is really a reflection on the entire U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of California, he said. It is a tribute to the hard work of the dedicated and innovative team that made these prosecutions possible.

After stepping down as U.S. attorney, Brewer returned to San Diego law firm Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek as of counsel focusing on civil litigation and white-collar defense. President Joe Biden has yet to name his nominee for the office.

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Coast Guard award recognizes focus on high seas cocaine-trafficking prosecutions - The San Diego Union-Tribune