The Nation - News from July 9, 1989

U.S. Customs Service surveillance planes watched a plane drop bales of cocaine to a speedboat just inside Cuban waters, then withdrew as Cuban MIG fighters approached. A few hours later, federal agents recovered 1,600 pounds of cocaine from the speedboat, found abandoned 20 miles south of Miami, said Patrick O’Brien, U.S. customs special agent in charge for South Florida. “The crackdown in Cuba has done little to stop the flow of drugs,” O’Brien said. He said the seizure is significant because it follows a Cuban crackdown on drugs that has reached the highest levels of the Communist island nation’s government.