Coast Guard Hunts Mexican Poachers Off Texas

In fiscal year 2022 the U.S. Coast Guard stopped 87 lanchas off the Texas coast, detained 373 Mexican fishermen and seized 15,809 pounds of illegally caught fish. This film follows the boats, the crews that chase them and the yard where every seized lancha ends up. A lancha is a 20 to 30 foot open boat with a single outboard motor, capable of more than 30 mph. Crews launch from the Mexican side, cross the Maritime Boundary Line and set miles of long line for red snapper and shark in U.S. federal waters. Aircraft from Air Station Corpus Christi spot them, 33-foot boat crews from Station South Padre Island run them down, and the men are handed to Customs and Border Protection. KAPITEL 0:00 Intro 0:39 The Boat 2:41 The Layers 7:00 One Day In August 9:10 The Graveyard 10:47 The Line KÄLLOR U.S. Coast Guard District 8, fiscal year 2022 lancha statistics (Seapower Magazine, Oct 2022) U.S. Coast Guard press release, July 13, 2023: lancha interdicted 29 miles off Texas, 660 lbs red snapper U.S. Coast Guard press release: 3 lanchas, 19 fishermen, 2,200 lbs red snapper (HSToday) DVIDS: Station South Padre Island, Air Station Corpus Christi, Coast Guard Heartland (2015–2025) All video footage is U.S. Coast Guard material released through DVIDS (Defense Visual Information Distribution Service) and is in the public domain. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) or Coast Guard visual information does not imply or constitute endorsement. The high-speed sequences marked TRAINING RUN are from a Coast Guard non-compliant vessel training exercise in March 2025, not from an actual interdiction. Music from Epidemic Sound: "High 118" (Wendel Scherer), "Soundbed – Blue Saga", "Dwell Upon" (Jon Bjork).