Another illicit-drug-carrying panga boat washed ashore along the Gaviota Coast. This time, a man taking his dog for an early morning walk on along a San Onofre Beach trail on Sept. 28 found a boat sitting among the rocks down below, according to Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Kelly Hoover.
The boat was found around 9 a.m. Authorities responded by sending a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter and air support as well as deputies from the Sheriff’s Office. Personnel from California State Parks showed up too.
They later confirmed the boat to be a 30-foot-long, twin-engine panga boat used for carrying marijuana. According to the Sheriff’s Office, officers found a bale, or approximately 60 pounds, of marijuana inside the boat and another one nearby.
Officers also found fuel barrels inside the boat and in the water and personal items strewn about the area.
Sheriff’s Office narcotics detectives and personnel from the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations found 38-year-old James Pierce and 32-year-old Francisco Soltero, both from Riverside, near the area of the boat.
Soltero and Pierce were arrested and booked into Santa Barbara County Jail on suspicion of drug trafficking charges and being under the influence of a controlled substance.
According to Hoover, Homeland Security and the Sheriff’s Office are both investigating origins of the boat.
Panga boats carrying drugs and washing ashore along the California coast are becoming more common. Mexican drug cartels, particularly the Sinaloa Cartel, are increasingly taking advantage of the state’s vast coastline to get their product through.
“The Sinaloa cartel is the primary Mexican cartel conducting panga smuggling operations along California’s coast,” a report from the California Attorney General’s Office said.
Boats have been found as far south as San Diego and as far north as Santa Cruz.
According to that March 2014 report, panga boat interceptions increased from 2009-2010, and then from 2010-2011. The amount of marijuana seized from panga boats ballooned from 3,800 pounds in 2009 to 120,000 pounds in 2012, the report said.
The last panga boat found off the Gaviota Coast was in February.
This article appears in Oct 1-8, 2015.