page_title: Law Enforcement Detachments
section_title: Counter-piracy
hierarchical_section_title: Law Enforcement Detachments / Operations / Counter-piracy
caption_attribution_description: English: Members of a visit, board, search and seizure team assigned to USS Gettysburg (CG 64) and U.S. Coast Guard Tactical Law Enforcement Team South Detachment 409 detain suspected pirates after responding to a merchant vessel distress signal while operating in the Combined Maritime Forces area of responsibility in the Gulf of Aden May 13, 2009. The service members are conducting the operation in support of Combined Task Force 151, a multinational task force established to counter piracy operations and to actively deter, disrupt and suppress piracy in order to protect global maritime security and secure freedom of navigation for all nations.
context_page_description: Law Enforcement Detachments or LEDETs are specialized, deployable maritime law enforcement teams of the United States Coast Guard. First established in 1982, their primary mission is to deploy aboard U.S. and allied naval vessels to conduct and support maritime law enforcement, interdiction, or security operations. LEDETs are the operational elements of the Coast Guard’s two Tactical Law Enforcement Teams which were part of the Coast Guard’s Deployable Operations Group from 2007 to 2013. As of April 2010 there are seventeen LEDETs.
context_section_description: LEDETs deployed aboard U.S. Navy ships as part of Combined Task Force 151 (CTF-151) to conduct counter-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia. On 13 May 2009 LEDET 409 assisted in the first capture of a pirate "mother ship" by CTF-151 after a U.S. Navy helicopter responding to a vessel under attack by pirates located a suspected pirate dhow. LEDET 409 and a Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure (VBSS) team from USS Gettysburg boarded the dhow and apprehended seventeen suspected pirates after finding assault rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher aboard.
  In May 2010, another LEDET operating in the Gulf of Oman with USS San Jacinto stopped a dhow which had been hijacked by pirates. They captured 13 pirates and freed the Yemeni mariners.
caption: A boarding team from USS Gettysburg and Law Enforcement Detachment 409 capture suspected pirates off Somalia.
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