SEATTLE -- With money earned from the Exxon cleanup in Alaska, the Washington Army National Guard took possession Monday of a tugboat seized last year in a smuggling operation that netted 72 tons of marijuana.
The MV Encounter Bay was confiscated by the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Customs on July 13, 1988, off the coast of Washington for illegally transporting 72 tons of high-grade marijuana. At the time, the seizure was the largest pot bust ever on the West Coast.
'We intend to start using this boat right away,' said Maj. Gen. Gregory Barlow, Washington's adjutant general. 'This boat has the power and size that really improves our ability to do our federal missions and help the people of Washington when the governor calls us.'
The Guard purchased the tugboat for about $71,000, about 1 percent of its estimated value of $7 million, according to Guard spokesman Maj. Joseph Jimenez.
Funds to acquire the ship from the U.S. Customs Service came from the $413,000-lease of the Guard's landing craft, which was used to help Exxon clean up the 11-million-gallon oil spill in Prince William Sound in Alaska.
The suspected kingpin in the smuggling operation, Brian Peter Daniels, 42, remains in King County Jail pending his federal trial in January. He faces similar charges in San Diego and Alaska and money laundering allegations in Reno, Nev.
Daniels, a wealthy U.S. citizen from New York, was extradited in February from Switzerland, where he had gone for medical treatment of an old burn wound almost a month after the Encounter Bay's seizure. Court documents allege he operated a vast marijuana-growing operation in Thailand, where he moved 10 to 15 years ago.
Daniels is one of 23 defendants from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore who were indicted in the operation -- most of them arrested as shipmates or crew members of the Encounter Bay.
Nineteen defendants pleaded guilty, including the ship's operator, and are serving five to 15 years in prison. Three others are still being sought.
As a drug-related seizure, the oil rig supply vessel was available for use by government agencies or could be sold with the money going to support the war on drugs, Jimenez said.
Earlier in this year, the Guard transported the 72 tons of marijuana to a firing center in Yakima, Wash., where they helped DEA agents destroy the pot in a burn that lasted 50 hours.
The MV Encounter Bay will be added to the Army Guard's other vessels in the 144th Transportation Battalion in Tacoma, Wash., which is the only watercraft battalion in the National Guard nationwide.
