The Coast Guard estimates it unloaded $62.6 million of weed and blow. That might be low
The U.S. Coast Guard unloaded 14,000 pounds of marijuana along with 3,660 pounds of apparently undervalued cocaine on Thursday morning at Port Everglades.
The weights come from the Coast Guard, which said the drugs got snagged over five cases in the Eastern Pacific Ocean by the Cutter Bear, the Cutter Valiant and the USS Tornado. The quality estimation comes from a breakdown of the Coast Guard’s estimation of the drugs’ worth, $50 million for the marijuana and $12.6 million for the cocaine.
At that price, the marijuana would sell for $223.21 per ounce, wholesale. The website webehigh.org says high-quality marijuana Miami retail street prices range from $300 to $350.
On the other hand, 3,660 pounds of cocaine is 1663.63 kilograms or 1,663,636 grams. To be worth $12.6 million wholesale, that would work out to $7,576.67 per kilo or $7.57 per gram.
According to Business Insider’s analysis of cocaine economics, to get cocaine at those wholesale prices, you’d have to buy it before it left Colombia. Or, put another way, the DEA Miami office’s Intelligence Chief told the Sun-Sentinel in 2017 the street price in Miami for cocaine is $50 to $80 per gram, a massive wholesale-to-retail markup even by drug dealer standards.
At $50 per gram, the street value in Miami of 1,663.63 kilos of cocaine would be $83,181,500.
This story was originally published April 18, 2019 at 11:54 AM.
