Posted on 07/03/2010 5:17:49 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
....and to judge from those already captured, no sanitary facilities whatsoever, no bunks, and no galley. Apparently, life aboard a narco-sub makes Das Boot look like the Love Boat.
I suggest that every USCG cutter station a hound dog on the foredeck. Anyway, that's what my Paw wouda said.
Sounds great.
stepping back in time...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/915059.stm
Thursday, 7 September, 2000, 18:40 GMT 19:40 UK
“Drug submarine found in Colombia”
www.justice.gov/dea/images_major_operations.html#sub
#
NOTE The following text is a quote:
www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/pressrel/pr070310.html
DEA Intel Aids In Seizure of Fully-Operational Narco Submarine In Ecuador
JUL 3 — (Washington)– On July 2, Ecuador Anti-Narcotics Police Forces and Ecuador Military authorities with the assistance of DEA seized a fully-operational submarine built for the primary purpose of transporting multi-ton quantities of cocaine.
Photo of Narco Submarine.
The investigation of the captured submarine and the individuals responsible for its construction is ongoing. One individual has been taken into custody by Ecuadorian authorities at the site of the seizure.
The twin-screw, diesel electric-powered submarine is about 30 meters long and about nine feet high from the deck plates to the ceiling. The sophisticated vessel also has a conning tower, periscope and air conditioning system.
DEA Andean Regional Director Jay Bergman stated: “Traffickers historically employed slow moving fishing boats, sail boats, pleasure craft and subsequently go-fasts. Eventually, when speed no longer won the day, traffickers to avoid detection, turned to parasitic devices on the bottom of ship hulls, towed array devices and ultimately low profile vessels and semi-submersible boats. The advent of the narco-submarine presents new detection challenges for maritime interdiction forces. The submarine’s nautical range, payload capacity and quantum leap in stealth have raised the stakes for the counter-drug forces and the national security community alike.”
The submarine was constructed in a remote jungle environment in an effort to elude law enforcement or military interdiction, and is currently located near a tributary close to the Ecuador/Colombia border. As a result of DEA intelligence, Ecuadorian authorities were able to seize the vessel before it was able to make its maiden voyage. This is the first seizure of a clandestinely constructed fully operational submarine built to facilitate trans-oceanic drug trafficking.
stepping back to last year...
Quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2223979/posts
U.S. Law Fights Submarine-Like Boats Hauling Cocaine
cnsnews.com ^ | April 06, 2009 | Frank Bajak
Posted on April 7, 2009 4:47:07 AM PDT by kellynla
Bogota (AP) - It’s a game played out regularly on the high seas off Colombia’s Pacific coast: A U.S. Navy helicopter spots a vessel the size of a humpback whale gliding just beneath the water’s surface.
A Coast Guard ship dispatches an armed team to board the small, submarine-like craft in search of cocaine. Crew members wave and jump into the sea to be rescued, but not before they open flood valves and send the fiberglass hulk and its cargo into the deep.
Colombia has yet to make a single arrest in such scuttlings because the evidence sinks with the so-called semi-submersible.
A new U.S. law and proposed legislation in Colombia aim to thwart what has become South American traffickers’ newest preferred means of getting multi-ton loads to Mexico and Central America.
Twelve people have been arrested under the Drug Trafficking Vessel Interdiction Act of 2008 since it went into effect in October. It outlaws such unregistered craft plying international waters “with the intent to evade detection.” Crew members are subject to up to 15 years in prison.
“It’s very likely a game-changer,” said Jay Bergman, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s regional director, based in Colombia. “You don’t get a get-out-of-jail free card anymore.”
The law faces legal challenges, though. The defendants have filed pretrial motions saying it violates due process and is an unconstitutional application of the so-called High Seas clause, which allows U.S. prosecution of felonies at sea.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
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