Coast Guard Boat Crew Shoots Out Engine of Migrant Smuggling Boat

On Saturday evening, a U.S. Coast Guard boat crew shot out the engine of a high-speed smuggling boat off Point Loma after the vessel ignored repeated commands to stop and be boarded.

At about 1750 hours, Coast Guard Sector San Diego spotted an 18-foot cuddy cabin boat moving at high speed about two miles south of Point Loma, making a northbound course. Watchstanders followed the suspicious boat using surveillance cameras as it entered San Diego Bay.

A Coast Guard Station San Diego patrol boat was diverted to intercept the vessel. The patrol boat found the speeding suspects and tried to make contact with the operator, but the cuddy cabin boat fled the scene.

The Coast Guard response boat crew tried to get the speedboat to stop by issuing orders and firing warning shots. When this did not work, the crew shot four rounds into the vessel’s engine, disabling it and forcing it to stop.

The Coast Guard crew boarded the vessel and took control of the scene. They found eight foreign nationals aboard: five adult men, one woman, and two male teenagers aged 16 and 17.

The suspects were taken to Ballast Point, near the entrance to San Diego's harbor, where they were transferred to officers from the Department of Homeland Security.

The intercept was the most dramatic of three separate interdictions off San Diego on Saturday. Earlier the same day, cutter Sea Otter intercepted a migrant boat off La Jolla, resulting in the capture of seven suspected illegal aliens, and cutter Terrell Horne interdicted a 20-foot pleasure craft off Point Loma, capturing another three suspects.

Coast Guard and CBP boat crews routinely intercept human smuggling attempts off the coast of Southern California. Human trafficking methods on this route are hazardous, and migrants regularly lose their lives on the route. Just last week, a rustic smuggling boat capsized off San Diego, leaving three dead and seven missing.