On the Run
Written by Maura McCarthy
CGF 2011 Volume: 3 Issue: 6 (December)
In mid-July the Coast Guard interdicted the first self-propelled semi-submersible (SPSS) vessel in the Western Caribbean, which led to the first underwater drug recovery from an SPSS vessel. After a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) maritime patrol airplane spotted the suspect vessel and alerted the cutter Seneca to its location, the CBP airplane, a Coast Guard pursuit boat and a HITRON (Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron) air asset engaged to apprehend the SPSS. The team interdicted the vessel and detained its crew before the vessel sank. The mission—which recovered $160 million dollars worth of cocaine off the ocean floor—demonstrated the importance of maritime law enforcement partnerships and the proper tools for countering narco-terrorists. In 2010 alone, the Coast Guard removed 202,439 pounds of cocaine and 36,739 pounds of marijuana from the drug transit zone; the newest—although not yet validated—figures as of September 2011 put Coast Guard removal at 150,696 pounds of cocaine and 26,659 pounds of marijuana. During the first deployment of Waesche, the service’s second national security cutter, the vessel seized 500 kilograms of cocaine—with an estimated street value of $25 million—in a 48-hour period. Most recently, in late November cutters Bertholf and Boutwell interdicted more than 2,470 pounds of cocaine and detained 12 suspects in three separate missions during a one-week period.
Partnerships & Laws
When it comes to drug interdiction, the Coast Guard has a unique military law enforcement role: “We’re the only U.S. government agency with both the capability and the authority to conduct maritime law enforcement outside U.S. territorial waters. Other agencies or services may have authority but not capability, others may have capability but not authority, we have both which makes us a great tool,” said Lou Orsini, senior maritime law enforcement advisor for the Coast Guard Office of Law Enforcement. For example, the Coast Guard will deploy LEDETS (law enforcement detachments) aboard Navy ships—who have the capability but not the authority— bringing their law enforcement authority with them and increasing effectiveness in conducting counter drug interdiction and apprehension. LEDETS are also deployed aboard allied naval ships from the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Canada in the transit zone—the 6 million square mile drug transit zone between South America and U.S.
Such partnerships are critical and the Coast Guard works routinely with the Departments of State, Justice, Defense, the FBI, DEA and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and DHS partners CBP and ICE, as well as organized crime drug enforcement task forces. Additionally, “The Coast Guard has over 40 bilateral agreements, which are very important to be able to conduct pursuit and entry into territorial waters of other countries, in order to board ships flagged in other countries, and to exchange shipriders,” explained Orsini. “When you embark a shiprider, the purpose is to make the receiving unit dualhatted, so that they would have on board the authority of both their own government and the government of the shiprider. If we take on a shiprider from Panama, for example, the USCG ship effectively becomes both a U.S. and a Panamanian law enforcement vessel.”
During the aforementioned interdiction involving Bertholf, the Guard Guard’s first NSC, the Coast Guard benefited from having a Panamanian shiprider aboard. Bertholf was patrolling Panamanian waters under the authority of an embarked Panamanian shiprider when, five miles west of Punta Caracoles, Panama, a maritime patrol airplane spotted a go-fast boat and informed Bertholf of the vessel’s position. Using the NSC’s forward-looking infrared radar, Bertholf was able to pinpoint the go-fast’s location and then launched a cutter boat to pursue it. Although the go-fast jettisoned approximately nine bales of contraband, the cutterboat’s crew recovered one.
Another unique element of the Coast Guard’s law enforcement capability is its airborne use of force (AUF) capable helicopters in HITRON. “HITRON forward deploys armed helicopters to the high threat drug trafficking areas and high security risk areas—not necessarily drug trafficking, but other illicit trafficking such as human and money. Narco-terrorism is all connected,” explained Captain Donna Cottrell, commanding officer of HITRON. With 10 helicopters, the squadron can deploy up to four at a time, “which can be to the Caribbean or the Eastern Pacific, but they are moved around depending on the threat vectors. We work with JIATF South in that regard,” said Cottrell. “Compel compliance basically gets them to disable their vessel. We either get them to stop with just our presence or we can disable the engines to get them to stop so that boarding teams can get onboard,” Cottrell said. Since May 1999, HITRON has seized $9 billion worth of illicit drugs, with their most recent bust being the interdiction of the aforementioned SPSS vessel with cutter Seneca. “We’re doing good things and our crews are extremely professional, we’re very disciplined in terms of weapons,” Cottrell emphasized.
Part of the challenge in tackling drug smugglers stems from the resources they have at their disposal—both in terms of finances and connections. “They have deep pockets and they have great networks; and again, I’m not just talking about the drugs but also the terrorist networks and the connection to terrorism. They can adapt pretty quickly to what we’re doing, compared to how we can adapt to them, which partly is due to the nature of a bureaucracy. This is a challenge for all countries battling narco-terrorists, not just the U.S. That’s the challenge at the strategic level; at the tactical level if they start using more SPSS it will challenge us because it is hard for us to detect them,” Cottrell concluded.
One way the U.S. has addressed the rise of SPSS vessels and strengthened the Coast Guard’s ability to prosecute the smugglers is through the Drug Trafficking Vessel Interdiction Act (DTVIA) of 2008. The principal law the Coast Guard enforces is the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (MDLEA), which states that it is illegal to have drugs in possession with the intent to distribute in a maritime arena. However, since 2008 the service has also relied upon the Drug Trafficking Vessel Interdiction Act that was born out of the rise of SPSS. “What we didn’t have under the MDLEA is the ability to prosecute a vessel without the drugs, simply because they are configured for low profile or not engaged in commerce. With the DTVIA, we can actually prosecute the vessel’s crew almost to the same extent that we can under the MDLEA without having any drugs on board. If they dump their load or scuttle, we can still prosecute,” Orsini explained.
Threat Detection
Many industry leaders have engaged the service and its partners in order to develop the enhanced technology needed to thwart illicit drug traffickers. Radars, communication systems, sonars and visual imaging systems are just some examples of the latest technologies that enable the Coast Guard to extend their eyes and ears on the water and meet the challenges of a determined adversary.
Terma North America Inc., an international company providing aerospace, defense and security applications, develops products for mission-critical environments. A leader in radars for coastal surveillance, vessel traffic services (VTS) and airport surface movement radars, Terma’s Scanter 2001 is utilized in over 1,200 locations globally. “The Scanter 2001 is well established as part of the USCG VTS program (formerly PAWWS), within the USCG Sector Command Center (SCC) Hawkeye program, as part of South Florida’s anti-smuggling surveillance shared by the USCG and Palm Beach County Law Enforcement authorities, and as part of the FAA’s Low Cost Ground Surveillance (LCGS) pilot program with installations at four sites,” explained Jim Moore, director of business development radar systems for Terma.
Terma’s newest generation of radars includes Scanter 6000, developed for shipboard applications, which rises to the challenge of detecting threats in a marine environment. This high-performance radar is “designed for the challenging detection and tracking requirements of the professional surveillance community for applications such as naval surface and low-altitude air surveillance, vessel traffic services, coastal surveillance installations, and airport surface movement radar. These applications demand consistent detection and tracking of targets ranging in size from extremely small to very large in high clutter environments and under a variety of conditions,” noted Moore.
To enhance maritime domain awareness in counter-drug missions, Scanter 6000’s advanced signal processing techniques means the system can conduct both long-range surveillance and close-in navigation tasks simultaneously. Additionally, “coherent processing, pulse compression, and true Doppler processing allow us to also add the ability to perform low-altitude air surveillance as well. This would allow a patrol vessel to use one tactical surveillance radar to perform navigation, long-range surface surveillance, and helicopter launch and recovery operations all simultaneously. In addition, operators performing each of these mission areas would not need to change radar settings and each would have radar data presented to them optimized for their use,” Moore highlighted. Terma is demonstrating these capabilities aboard the Navy’s technology demonstration platform, Stiletto.
Reliable Crew Comms
Once the suspected vessel is identified, the ability for Coast Guard crewmembers—whether they be air crews or boat crews—to communicate with each other is paramount. Hearing over the roar of the engines while you’re cutting through the water at speeds in excess of 30 knots is exceedingly challenging, if not impossible, never mind hearing over the rotor noise at any speed. Specializing in communication equipment for high noise environments, David Clark Company Inc. (DCCI) has provided communications systems to fire departments, civilian and military pilots, airline ground support personnel, NASA, as well as U.S. and NATO partner countries for over 50 years. DCCI’s 9900 Series Wireless Communication System offers clear communications, hands-free communication that is critical for law enforcement, homeland security and coastal patrol marine vessels, aeromedical SAR teams, and mobile work teams. The system utilizes duplex communication with DECT-based technology and is able to interface with existing wired systems and most HF, VHF and UHF mobile radios.
To withstand the harsh marine environment, the rugged system uses “stainless steel hardware to prevent corrosion and sealed enclosures that are IP67 rated to prevent water ingress,” explained Mark Gardell, director, sales and marketing for David Clark. Additionally, to coordinate among multiple vessels, the system can integrate up to four users per gateway and can expand to include multiple gateways— each headset with a range of up to a 100-meter radius from the gateway. Perhaps most importantly, the system provides crewmembers the ability to communicate through a secure signaling “close link” feature that prevents interception. “The system allows multiple crew members to communicate hands-free under high-speed conditions while hearing communications from other vessels or locations via onboard radios, resulting in improved interoperability. Additionally, the freedom of mobility allows boarding members to remain in full communication with the primary vessel,” noted Gardell.
Underwater Recovery
In cases like the aforementioned interdiction of the SPSS—which was the first time the Coast Guard used divers to recover contraband— the Coast Guard and partners require specific equipment for underwater identification. In this sense, for “police, fire and specialized search and rescue/recovery dive teams presented with the daunting task of searching large underwater areas, an invaluable part of their solution is the EdgeTech 4125 side scan sonar,” said Doug McGowen, director of business development for EdgeTech and ORE Offshore.
EdgeTech and affiliate ORE Offshore lead the industry in the design and manufacture of underwater sonar imaging systems and acoustic command, control and positioning solutions, serving customers including the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers, as well as foreign navies, survey firms and law enforcement groups. “EdgeTech develops and produces a variety of standard and engineered-to-order marine products and systems including side scan sonar, sub-bottom profilers, bathymetric, combined, integrated and modular systems,” explained McGowen.
These systems can be configured for towed, deep towed, autonomous underwater vehicles, unmanned surface vehicles (USV), remotely operated vehicles (ROV), remotely operated towed vehicles and custom platforms and have been used by military and law enforcement agencies to conduct underwater search and rescue, port and harbor security, mine hunting, pre- and post-dredge reviews, buried object location, ship hull survey, channel clearance surveys, deep water geohazard surveys and military rapid environmental assessments—all of which require advanced underwater imaging technologies. “EdgeTech offers a set of unique and exciting underwater imaging technologies including full spectrum CHIRP processing, multi-pulse technology, and dynamically focused arrays. Our proprietary full spectrum CHIRP processing enhances long-range resolutions through improved signalto- noise ratios. Multi-pulse technology puts up to four pulses in the water simultaneously, thereby enabling either a quadrupled survey speed increase over conventional side-scan sonar systems or a marked increase of pings on target, leading to superior resolutions. EdgeTech’s exclusive dynamically focused arrays sharpen resolutions in the far field and enable better target identifications at longer ranges. In addition to these pioneering technologies, our expertise in telemetry, compact and low power electronics, modular designs and software programming allows us to provide unique and tailored solutions for platforms that include towed bodies, powered towed bodies, ROV, USV and unmanned underwater vehicles,” said McGowen.
Eyes on the Water
FLIR has a long history of partnering with the Coast Guard, dating back to the development in the mid-1980s of the first thermal imaging search and rescue system that was more affordable and available than the expensive military equipment that was on the market at the time. In 2007, FLIR was awarded Coast Guard contracts for the installation of a variant of the Talon stabilized multi-sensor thermal imaging system on both surface and air platforms.
The SIRVSS program (Shipboard Infrared Visual Sensor System) is a five-year contract to install the Talon variant on cutters including the 270’ MEC and 378’ HEC, while the ESS program (electro optical sensor system) is a 10-year contract to install the Talon variant on HH-60J and H-65 helicopters (which are being upgraded and re-designated as MH-60T and MH-65) for airborne use of force, interdiction and search and rescue. While FLIR couldn’t comment specifically on the programs, in general the Talon can carry up to six different payloads including IR (infrared), color, CCD (charge coupled device), EMCCD (electron multiplying charge coupled device), laser pointer or laser illuminator, LRF (laser rangefinder), and IMU (inertial measurement unit). The system features state-of-the-art imaging, stabilization, advanced fiber optic gyro, multi-target autotracker, analog and digital video, single LRU option, and embedded IMU/GPS and LRF. “Generally, the Talon variant gives the Coast Guard a fairly long-range, look-down capability. They can not only effectively track targets of interests—go fasts, for example—both day and night, but they can also conduct search and rescue. It gives them a very capable system for day and night and inclement weather. It’s really a force multiplier for them, allowing them to see things they wouldn’t have been able to, allowing them to do their mission in much worse weather,” explained Dave Strong, vice president of marketing for government solutions at FLIR.
When designing products for the Coast Guard, one of the most significant challenges is the “marinization” of the product, Strong noted. “When building products for an airborne environment, the ability to simultaneously have both very good gyro stabilization and sealing, from a technical perspective, is, in a way, contrary requirements. To be able to do them both well takes experience, capable design, knowledge and background. Since we also put these same products on ships, we’ve learned over the years how to ‘marinize’ them effectively. We have special seals that are used for these units that allow them to go on small craft in heavy sea states and take a lot of pounding from the ocean. We can therefore apply that knowledge to the airborne environment and seal the airborne products effectively,” Strong said. FLIR learned firsthand the importance of addressing environmental challenges when it worked with the U.S. military deployed in the Persian Gulf in the 1990s. Strong explained, “In the Persian Gulf, the salinity in the water is higher than it is just about anywhere else in the world. Working with the military, we learned how to select the proper materials, use the right coatings and the right seals to survive in that harsh environment. Applying that to customers like the Coast Guard, we provide them a very effective capability to resist the effects of salt water, corrosion and intrusion.”
The future of imaging systems may already be here, though they are not yet widely used. FLIR has developed high-definition capabilities, although worldwide the adoption of high definition is still in the early stages. Additionally, augmented reality—the ability to merge various sources of data—is promising. “Imagine looking at the screen of your thermal imager and seeing a number of ships in the channel, but overlaying that is data about the identity of those ships, their destinations and cargo. The ability to augment the reality you see with moving map information is definitely the wave of the future and something that we’re offering today,” Strong highlighted. ♦