DEA & Coast Guard Board Tampa Fishing Fleet — 1,800 lbs Fentanyl in Ice Holds, Cuba Route Confirmed

DEA acoustic buoys flagged a shrimp boat running 11 inches too deep in 8-foot seas off Egmont Key. What Coast Guard HITRON-9 found in the ice holds changed the operation entirely. Bay Star Shrimping — 47 vessels, 41 years, USDA-certified — had been moving fentanyl bricks inside keel-rib compartments on a Sinaloa-built Cuba transit route for nine months. The case confirms a maritime corridor CENTCOM had been tracking from the other direction. April 3, 2026: six vessels seized at sea, 41 federal trucks at Port Sutton at 4 AM, 32 arrests including three cooperative directors, and 1,800 lbs of 93% pure fentanyl pulled from crushed shrimp ice. But the sealed supplement names a former Tampa port commissioner — and two additional active nodes in the Cuba corridor remain open. This is a cinematic documentary reconstruction of the federal case built on public court records, indictment documents, and DEA interdiction data. Names of suspects and specific case details are used in the narrative documentary tradition of the genre. This video is a dramatized documentary reconstruction based on publicly available federal court records, indictment filings, and law enforcement reporting. No classified information was used. This channel is not affiliated with the DEA, U.S. Coast Guard, or any federal agency. Content is intended for informational and educational purposes only. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. 🔔 Subscribe for new federal cases every day.