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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 ...