Customs and Border Protection - Surveillance Branch - West

Flying five P-3 Orion Command and Control aircraft and five Surveillance and Intercept aircraft out of NAS Corpus Christi, CBP Surveillance Branch - West is responsible for detecting, identifying and tracking aircraft used to smuggle drugs into the United States. It also provides the Department of Homeland Security aerial protection for critical national infrastructures, and helps protect the President and Vice President when they are airborne.

Its area of responsibility includes the entire Western Hemisphere with P-3 aircraft routinely operating from regions of Alaska and Canada, south through the continental United States to the equatorial and Andean ridge latitudes. The aircraft have been re-positioned as far south as Paraguay, as far west as Hawaii, and as far east as Europe.

With a staff of only 129 people, this organization has been responsible for making a considerable dent in the drug trafficking trade. Since June 1987, Surveillance Branch-West has been responsible for the seizure of cocaine with an estimated wholesale value of well more than $4.8 billion at current market value.

Customs and Border Protection counter-drug air and marine detection, surveillance and intelligence operations have resulted in the arrest of 888 individuals suspected of involvement in smuggling activities; and the seizure of 200 aircraft, 213 vehicles, 126 vessels, and one million pounds of marijuana and 555,000 pounds of cocaine.