After the most recent story of Columbian drug subs being seized, some additional
coverage came out in the LA Times online edition.
It was on a routine patrol that the Colombian coast guard stumbled upon an eerie outpost amid the mangroves: a mini-shipyard where suspected drug traffickers were building submarines.
Perched on a makeshift wooden dry dock late last month were two 55-foot-long fiberglass vessels, one ready for launch, the other about 70% complete. Each was outfitted with a 350-horsepower Cummins diesel engine and enough fuel capacity to reach the coast of Central America or Mexico, hundreds of miles to the north.
The vessels had cargo space that could fit 5 tons of cocaine, a senior officer with the Colombian coast guard’s Pacific command said in an interview.
The design featured tubing for air, crude conning towers and cramped bunk space for a crew of four, he added. The boats have become increasingly sophisticated, evolving from huge tubes built to be towed by fishing or cargo boats to self-propelled vessels with ballast systems and communications equipment that leave no wake or radar profile as they glide just below the ocean surface.
The seizures point to a security threat that goes beyond drug trafficking. Many law enforcement officials are concerned that U.S. ports and shorelines could be vulnerable to terrorist attacks using such crudely built submarines.
“There could be 5 tons of anything on board these things,” said a senior U.S. military official involved in the war on drugs.
The Colombian coast guard official said crew members of a submersible detained this year after their 55-foot vessel sank off the coast of Tumaco, Colombia, told police that they viewed the craft as a death trap but were lured by the $2,000 payment the drug magnates promised to pay them to guide the vessel to Central America.
Asked to describe the men detained, the coast guard official merely said: “Crazy.”
