Drug smuggling

US Air Force B-1 Bombers Are Hunting Drug Smugglers From Key West

If you happened to glance at Google Earth’s satellite imagery of Naval Air Station Key West in Florida recently, you may have noticed something that might seem odd. A trio of B-1 Bones from the 7th Bomb Wing at Dyess Air Force Base in Texas are sitting on the flight line. The swing-wing bombers aren’t there poised for a strike on Cuba or somewhere else in the Caribbean, but instead as part of a routine, if largely unknown mission that has them looking for drug smugglers.

For more than a decade, the U.S. Air Force has deployed B-1s, as well as B-52H Stratofortresses, E-3 AWACS, E-8C JSTARS (JSTARS), and supporting KC-135 tankers in support of counterdrug efforts in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Unique interagency task forces – Joint Interagency Task Force-South (JIATF-S) situated in Key West and Joint Interagency Task Force-West (JIATF-W) in Hawaii – coordinate these missions as part of a whole-of-government approach. These headquarters bring together members of the U.S. military, U.S. Intelligence Community, and American law enforcement agencies, as well as representatives from other nations in their respective regions.