According to President Donald Trump, US military strikes on eight vessels in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, which mostly targeted Venezuelan vessels, were legal because they carried drugs that were being delivered to the country.
However, Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who is also the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, claimed maritime law enforcement statistics show that not all boats are actually loaded with drugs. He claimed that US military actions were against routine.
When you stop people at sea in international waters or in your own waters, you announce that you’re going to board the ship and that you’re looking for drugs, smuggling, or contraband. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” program, Paul remarked on October 19 that this occurs every day off of Miami. According to the Coast Guard, about 25% of the time the Coast Guard boarded a ship had no drugs on it. So, if our current policy is to bomb every ship we suspect or accuse of drug trafficking, we would have a bizarre world where 25% of the population might be innocent.
In an interview from October 12th, Paul made a similar statement.
The Trump administration has not provided any proof that the vessels contained drugs, despite the fact that more than 30 have already died as a result of the strikes. Trump’s recent claim that “25, 000 American lives were saved by each strike was deemed false by us.
According to Paul’s office, the US Coast Guard’s 2024 fiscal year report was referenced by PolitiFact, which stated that the agency intercepted drugs in about 73% of cases when they boarded boats, with about 27% of vessel interceptions resulting in no drugs.
Experts said Paul’s claim is supported by the data, but it’s unclear how the Coast Guard defines the term “a drug disruption” as being used to describe the intercepting of drugs.
Does “drug disruption” mean “does that includes the (Coast Guard) board of a vessel and discovers a known drug trafficker but no drugs, and that person is detained and found guilty? “Does that include “drug disruption”?” Dr. Jonathan Caulkins, a researcher on drug policy at Carnegie Mellon University, said. “Or suppose they approach the vessel, and the Coast Guard seizes it after the drugs have vanished into the water but the drugs have been jettisoning overboard.” Is that a successful disruption?
According to experts, Paul’s figure might not have been directly related to the recent boat strikes because the US might have been aware of those specific vessels’ information.
The Coast Guard was contacted by PolitiFact regarding its data collection procedures, but they did not respond.
A Coast Guard report provides information on the agency’s drug interceptions.
The Department of Homeland Security is informed by the Coast Guard about its frequent drug intercepts. The organization’s performance in various programs is summarized in its 2024 fiscal year report, which covers October 2023 to September 2024.
According to the report, the Coast Guard conducted drug searches in 91 out of 125 boat interdictions during that time, which was a rate of about 73%.
According to the report, “the Coast Guard boarding teams’ searches are of high quality,” adding that the agency’s metrics are influenced by the agency’s level of intelligence and timeliness.
In recent years, the rate has changed. According to the report, the agency began disclosing data on drug interception in fiscal year 2021, which indicates a 59 percent drug disruption rate that year, which translated to 41 percent of the boats searched for finding no drugs.
In 2022 and 2023, the intercept rate increased to 64 percent, respectively. The Coast Guard’s highest interception rate since it began collecting the data in 2024 is 73 percent, which is above the highest rate since then. It lists an annual goal of 80% interception rate.
What constitutes a drug disruption, the Coast Guard did not respond to our inquiries about how its data collection procedure was conducted. A , 2025 Coast Guard report , analyzing agency data from fiscal years 2021 through 2023, found that some reports didn’t provide the necessary documentation or results for drug seizures.
According to experts, it’s unclear whether the recent attacks in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean correspond directly to the Coast Guard’s 2024 statistic.
Caulkins argued that “people who have their fingers on the trigger” might want a much higher level of certainty before shooting. That doesn’t mean that the senator’s figure applies to Venezuela’s unique case of boats, even if the senator’s figure were accurate when looking through all the numerous, very diverse operations over the course of a year. It might, but perhaps not.
It is impossible to know whether any of the boats contained lethal drugs, or if they were en route to the US because the Trump administration is adamant about the type or quantity of information it claims was on.
Previous reports from drug experts revealed that Venezuela only participates in the US’s drug trafficking. Mexico, not Venezuela, is the source of the majority of fentanyl in the US. It is mainly smuggled in by US citizens, primarily through the southern border at authorized ports of entry, and is mostly smuggled into the country.
Our decision
There are no drugs on board ships, according to Paul, who said that about 25% of the time.
According to a 2024 Coast Guard report, the agency boarded and intercepted boats carrying drugs 73 percent of the time, which means that 27 percent of the interceptions ended up being unintended.
However, experts speculate that this drug disruption statistic may not directly relate to recent boat strikes because we don’t know what kind of information the US has about those vessels.
