A 69-year-old man convicted of smuggling methamphetamine by jet ski through the waters of the Salish Sea between California and Vancouver Island has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison, the U.S. District Court for Western Washington confirmed this week. The case is among the more unusual drug smuggling operations prosecuted in the Pacific Northwest in recent years.
How the Scheme Worked
John Sherwood, now 69, operated a supply chain that began in Southern California and moved drugs north along the Pacific Coast to a contact on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Rather than using conventional land routes through the Interstate 5 corridor or commercial shipping channels through major ports, Sherwood transported narcotics through Puget Sound and the Salish Sea by jet ski and inflatable raft, navigating the same waterways used by recreational boaters, ferries, whale watching vessels, and commercial fishing boats that pass through Whatcom County's waters daily.
The scheme unraveled in April 2021 when a family found a duffel bag packed with methamphetamine on a beach in Port Angeles, on the Olympic Peninsula. A second witness discovered a deflated raft in a different area of the same beach, and a third person located seven more duffel bags filled with meth under a nearby bridge. The volume and distribution of the packages suggested not a one-time drop but a recurring operation that had experienced a failed delivery. The physical evidence scattered across the Port Angeles waterfront gave investigators a starting point for what became a multi-jurisdictional investigation tracing the supply chain back to its origin.
Investigators pieced together that Sherwood had been making multiple trips along the route, using the relative freedom of personal watercraft to move between coastal access points without the scrutiny that land border crossings or commercial ports would bring. The Salish Sea, which encompasses Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the waters of the Gulf Islands and San Juan Islands, creates hundreds of miles of coastline that is difficult to monitor comprehensively. The volume of legitimate recreational and commercial boat traffic in the region provides natural camouflage for a jet ski moving along the coast, making waterborne smuggling attractive to operators willing to accept the physical risks of open-water travel in an area where weather can change quickly and tidal currents are significant.
The Trial and Retrial
Sherwood was initially convicted in 2024, but a second trial was ordered after reports emerged of alleged misconduct by a government witness. Retrials following witness misconduct findings are uncommon but not unprecedented in federal cases, and the process added considerable time to the case before a final disposition was reached. The integrity of the evidence presented to jurors is a foundational requirement of the federal system, and when that integrity is called into question by credible allegations of witness misconduct, the procedural response is a new trial even when the underlying facts of the case remain strong. The second jury reached the same conclusion as the first: guilty on the drug trafficking charges.
The 15-year federal prison sentence was handed down by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. Federal drug trafficking sentences at this level reflect both the volume of narcotics involved and the sophisticated and sustained nature of the operation, which involved coordination across state lines, multiple transportation methods, and an international destination.
The Broader Smuggling Landscape in Northwest Waters
Drug and contraband smuggling through the marine corridors of northwest Washington is an ongoing concern for federal law enforcement. The region's geography, with its hundreds of islands, irregular and largely undeveloped shoreline in many areas, and busy recreational boating culture, creates natural cover for illicit waterborne activity that is genuinely difficult to interdict comprehensively. U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Marine Unit, based in Blaine, patrols the waters of the San Juan Islands and the Strait of Georgia as part of its border enforcement mission, working alongside the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound.
The Blaine Sector of U.S. Border Patrol, headquartered on the U.S.-Canada border, coordinates with CBP Marine on maritime enforcement actions in Whatcom County's coastal waters. The agency regularly publicizes interdictions and arrests in the region, though the full scope of smuggling activity that goes undetected in any given season is by nature unknown. Sherwood's case illustrates how a sustained operation can run for a period before a single piece of physical evidence, in this case a duffel bag found by a family on a beach, initiates the chain of investigation that leads to an arrest.
For Sherwood, the 15-year sentence means he will be well into his 80s before completing his prison term. Federal sentences are served at a minimum of 85 percent of the imposed term under current federal law, meaning the effective minimum time served would be approximately 12 years and nine months before any consideration of release. Given his age at sentencing, the sentence is effectively a life-altering and potentially life-ending consequence for a criminal enterprise that unraveled because a family noticed something unusual during a spring afternoon walk along the Port Angeles waterfront. The case will be available for review through the Western District of Washington's public court records system for anyone who wants to follow subsequent proceedings or appeals.
