in March. The bulk of those cases were handled by Ruddy and his colleagues in Tampa, where PANEX is headquartered.
“Ruddy is at the heart of a costly and aggressive prosecutor-led dragnet that every year pulls hundreds of low-level cocaine traffickers off the oceans and incarcerates them in the U.S.
After two weeks aboard the U.S. Coast Guard vessel, Pereira made his initial court appearance in Tampa in March, charged under the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, whichanywhere on the high seas whenever it determines a vessel is “without nationality.” “He never even hit brakes,” a witness told police. “He just kept going and he was swerving all the way up the road. I’m like, ‘No, he’s going to hurt somebody.’ So I just followed him until I got the tag number and just called and reported it.”