The U.S. Coast Guard halted a human smuggling attempt off the San Diego coast on Jan. 5, after two men on a boat rammed a patrol vessel and resisted arrest, according to court documents. The incident began at a boat ramp near Mission Bay Drive Bridge, where Border Patrol agents detained four individuals who had exited a vessel.
The four individuals, identified as Mexican nationals without legal documentation, told agents they had agreed to pay between $7,000 and $19,000 to be smuggled into the United States.
Two men, later identified as Oscar Eduardo Audelo-Rodriguez and Francisco Brado-Cota, reboarded the vessel and fled the scene, ignoring commands to stop. The boat, which had fishing poles attached to disguise its purpose, was pursued by the Coast Guard. When intercepted, the men rammed the patrol vessel and threw metal objects at officers, court records said.
Coast Guard members responded by firing disabling rounds at the boat’s motor and deploying non-lethal pepper balls. Despite disabling the vessel, the men resisted arrest until officers boarded the boat and subdued them with pepper spray.
Audelo-Rodriguez, identified as the captain, and Brado-Cota, the co-captain, were taken into custody and transported to Naval Base Point Loma. They were medically cleared and placed in federal custody.
The Coast Guard did not provide comment on the incident.
According to officials, the agency encounters approximately 3,000 migrants attempting to enter the U.S. by sea annually and conducts about 1,400 boardings of high-risk vessels. Between the summer of 2021 and winter of 2023, the service detained more than 27,000 individuals in maritime smuggling cases.
