The Coast Guard announced that it has seized more cocaine in 2007 – 355,755 pounds, worth more than $4.7 billion –than in any other year in its history. The milestone came as smugglers resorted to increasingly wily means to thwart interdiction efforts, such as dissolving the drug in diesel fuel and using self-propelled submersible vessels. The largest seizure during the year occurred in March, when the Coast Guard intercepted a Panamanian ship carrying more than 20 tons of cocaine.