Damn …
MEXICO CITY — When anti-narcotics agents first heard that drug cartels were building an armada of submarines to transport cocaine, they thought it was a joke.
Now U.S. law enforcement officials say that more than a third of the cocaine smuggled into the United States from Colombia travels in submersibles.
An experimental oddity just two years ago, these strange semi-submarines are the cutting edge of drug trafficking today. They ferry hundreds of tons of cocaine for powerful Mexican cartels that are taking over the Pacific Ocean route for most northbound shipments, according to the Colombian navy.
The subs are powered by ordinary diesel engines and built of simple fiberglass in clandestine shipyards in the Colombian jungle. U.S. officials expect 70 or more to be launched this year with a potential cargo capacity of 380 tons of cocaine, worth billions of dollars in the United States.
The submersibles are equipped with technologies that make them difficult to intercept, even though U.S. forces use state-of-the-art submarine warfare strategies against them. Authorities say most slip through their net.
“You try finding a floating log in the middle of the Pacific,” one DEA agent said.
U.S. officials and their Colombian counterparts have detected evidence of more than 115 submersible voyages since 2006. They have apprehended the crews of more than 22 submersibles at sea since 2007. Six crews have been arrested this year. The Colombian navy has intercepted or discovered 33 subs since 1993.
U.S. officials fear that the rogue vessels could be used by terrorists intent on reaching the United States with deadly cargos.
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53 comments Add your comment
catlady
June 6th, 2009
8:56 am
Let’s get the Columbian drug cartels to find Osama Bin Laden.
I Report :-)/You Whine :-(
June 6th, 2009
9:01 am
Please, a diesel engine inside of fiberglass tube underwater should be easier to find then the National Debt of the United States.
Someone is not looking very hard.
I Report :-)/You Whine :-(
June 6th, 2009
9:04 am
I get it, the socialists haven’t totally stupified the population of the United States with their shabby education system, although they do have Mission Accomplished with the Pinko Nation, so now they are going to finish the job by making us all crackheads.
Obozo has probably got ACORN semen, er, seaman, driving the damn things.
eewwww
clyde
June 6th, 2009
9:06 am
I’ve read that the war on drugs isn’t really a war.Planes ,trains,automobiles,and now submarines.Sounds like a war to me.
clyde
June 6th, 2009
9:09 am
Join the Navy,Whine.See the world.Locate suubmarines.They need your expertise.
T
June 6th, 2009
9:09 am
Sounds to me like the war on drugs was geared towards the wrong enemy. Large prison terms for possession, but no strategy on how to combat the drugs entering the country. Interesting.
TW
June 6th, 2009
9:11 am
We don’t have a war on drugs. We have a war on pot for the purpose of preserving our alcohol aided economy.
Focus the time/money/resources we waste on marijuana on cocaine and meth instead and these ’submersibles’ would be gone by lunchtime.
I Report :-)/You Whine :-(
June 6th, 2009
9:20 am
Clyde- Water carries sound waves for miles, preserves them almost. Next time you are in a lake be sure to light off an M80 and hold it underwater with yourself so you can discover what I speak of.
Diesel engines are big clangy things, again, look into an exhaust stack on the next semi you see and have the drive pour the fuel to it.
You could probably lay on the beach sunning yourself and know when one of these things goes by.
If you wanna know, that is.
TnGelding
June 6th, 2009
9:23 am
The war on drugs created the conditions that create such preposterous scenarios. Take away the profit and the cartels disappear.
Wes
June 6th, 2009
9:24 am
Jay,
Why are we fighting these battles? The people of the US are willing to pay large amounts of money for these substances. We’re enriching people who don’t pay taxes instead of people who do. And there are legal substances that do essentially the same thing for people who have the money to spend on doctors. (Ritalin is fairly comparable to cocaine.) We’re just putting on a show for people who don’t want to recognize that most of the US is chemically dependant in one way or another
TnGelding
June 6th, 2009
9:36 am
The war is on common sense, not drugs. It must end, NOW!
getalife
June 6th, 2009
9:41 am
Lets end the war on drugs and engage the RW extremists.
josef nix
June 6th, 2009
9:42 am
What part of Prohibition don’t they get?
clyde
June 6th, 2009
9:42 am
I see,Whine.It’s a conspiracy between the Navy and the drug dealers.Is that how it’s going down?
josef nix
June 6th, 2009
9:46 am
TnGelding–”Take away the profit and the cartels disappear.”
I second that! Don’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out, but then the rocket scientist have gone into submarine R&D….
josef nix
June 6th, 2009
9:48 am
TnGelding–The war is on common sense, not drugs. It must end, NOW!
That war’s is over, common sense lost and has joined the CSA in the lost cause bone orchard.
T
June 6th, 2009
9:49 am
Hmmm. Whine, may have a point. We can detect other submarines, but not one composed of basic technology?
Would it not be more profitable to give a blind eye to those drug filled submarines?
Redneck Convert
June 6th, 2009
9:53 am
Well, I thought I seen it all when I read about the woman in the airport with suitcases made out of cocaine. Now we see submarines. Before that it was tunnels and wheel wells.
Anyhow, it’s getting harder and harder to sneak drugs into the country. So the price goes way up. That means more people try to get into the business to get some of the profit. So we declare the War on Drugs and the price goes up again. And more people get into the business. So we have to spend more money on prisons to keep the people we catch.
Seems to me the only people losing big-time in this war is us taxpayers.
But I might could be wrong. Have a good day everybody.
DB, Gwinnettian
June 6th, 2009
9:57 am
Obviously, you decriminalize this stuff and you take away the motive to resort to such craziness. I don’t see Obama making any serious strides to do that in his first term but you never know.
josef nix
June 6th, 2009
9:58 am
Redneck Convert–Seems to me the only people losing big-time in this war is us taxpayers.
But I might could be wrong. Have a good day everybody.
There’s a great deal to recommend the “sin tax.” Why should only the tobacco and alcohol addicts (aficionados?) be the only ones…me thinks there’s a drug cartel lobby…
DB, Gwinnettian
June 6th, 2009
9:58 am
utterly off topic, but Atrios has a decent Deep Thought:
77 members in the Congressional Progressive Caucus. They support a single payer health care plan. 51 Blue Dogs. They don’t. Who is on your teevee? In your news weekly?
DB, Gwinnettian
June 6th, 2009
10:01 am
me thinks there’s a drug cartel lobby…
Nope, just interested prison and law enforcement-affiliated industries who’d stand to lose a ton of revenue if we didn’t incarcerate something like 5-10x the number of our citizens that most civilized nations see fit to lock up.
josef nix
June 6th, 2009
10:03 am
DB, Gwinnettian
“I don’t see Obama making any serious strides to do that in his first term but you never know.”
Obama? Serious strides? Why would this issue be any different from any of the others. Course, like you say, you never know and this is a smoke and mirrors thing…now, there’s where Obama has made great strides
DB, Gwinnettian
June 6th, 2009
10:05 am
The war is on common sense, not drugs.
The old AAR program “Morning Sedition” used to refer to an overarching “WAR ON BRAINS.”
(I used to think it a tad shrill. I doubt it really was.)
ByteMe
June 6th, 2009
10:06 am
Whine is right: these are noisy things underwater. The problem isn’t the noise, but who is capable of looking for and intercepting the thing making the noise.
The group tasked with intercepting crafts coming into our waters is the Coast Guard and they aren’t set up to look for or intercept submarines. Would be cool, though, to give those little PT boats those oil-drum depth charges like you see in the movies.
The group that can track and intercept submarines is the Navy Fleet and they are not deployed off our coast for intercepting drug traffic. It’s just not their job. They’re hunting bears.
And the DEA is mostly land-bound.
So it’s really just a failure to have the right assets reporting to the right commanders for the right mission. But as with all “wars”, as the tactics change, so will the counter-tactics after a time if the politics demands it.
DB, Gwinnettian
June 6th, 2009
10:07 am
j-nix, I think I’ll just say going forward that I’m more or less resigned to you being kind of a whiny crank when it comes to Obama. We all have chips on our shoulders, some of us are more blatant about it than others, and I don’t judge you especially harshly for yours, but it does get a bit tiresome.
DB, Gwinnettian
June 6th, 2009
10:08 am
Off to canoe. Later, all.
I Report :-)/You Whine :-(
June 6th, 2009
10:10 am
clyde- Ok, I go slower this time. Obozo is the “Commander in Chief,” or at least plays one on TV. The dhimmocrats control Congress and thus federal spending. If you don’t give any money to the Navy to interdict the drug trade, they cannot interdict the drug trade. Some things are obvious, I thought.
And then you send your stooges in the state controlled media out to propagandize about the “technological advances” by the third world tinpots, blah, blah, problem solved.
It’s just another facet of the socialist genocide being committed against the people of the United States.
You can’t see how much they hate us?
josef nix
June 6th, 2009
10:11 am
DB, Gwinnettian
“Nope, just interested prison and law enforcement-affiliated industries who’d stand to lose a ton of revenue if we didn’t incarcerate something like 5-10x the number of our citizens that most civilized nations see fit to lock up.”
Got a point there. My sister, brother and brother-in-law have a company a sub department of which deals with prison security systems. Checked in with them not long ago on howzzit goin’ relative to the economic breakdown. This end of the bidness, they say, is keeping them in the style to which they are accustomed.
me thinks there’s a drug cartel lobby…
Paging Copyleft, our authority on lobbyists and secret cabals…
josef nix
June 6th, 2009
10:19 am
DB–why, thank-yee kindly. But then my chip IS on the left shoulder. No, I don’t join the bleeding choir on Obama. Bear in mind I’m just a cranky reactionary. If you find that tiresome, then do as my special interest agenda folks say, “rest!
Have a good day canoeing and let me know if the waters part!
Whiner is insane
June 6th, 2009
10:48 am
Gee, the war on drugs was going so well until Obama took office.
Michael H. Smith
June 6th, 2009
10:52 am
WOW! Did Jay Bookman finally get it? Open borders are open invitations to anyone including people who want to destroy the freedoms and liberties this Republic enjoys. Just put your head back into the sand Jay. Just keep telling yourself that people like me who have been calling for securing our borders and ports, are a bunch of anti-immigrant RACISTS who are attempting to make America a jackboot closed police state society.
Well, for whatever reason this Washington Post article snagged your attention among the all too many others from various papers that have been pointing out the gravity of our open borders it is good to see you have received the wake up call at last.
How do you find a log in the Pacific Ocean?
Obviously few have given the question much thought in Washington D.C. . Dear leader Hussein Obumer and that old party now in power are even less likely to search for one than has been the case in times past. They’ll just greet our enemies that have a good heart and just want to feed their families with apologies in hopes they will forgive a misbehaving America for being so difficultly American.
RW-(the original)
June 6th, 2009
10:57 am
Who is on your teevee? In your news weekly
Generally speaking I would say it’s Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid. San Fran Nan used to be on there quite a bit but now that she’s scared she’ll get a CIA/lie question she’s pretty scarce.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Maybe the save the whales loons that are always trying to get sonar outlawed are really just drug runners that want to save their subs.
Lee
June 6th, 2009
10:57 am
There is an old adage that says the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Whenever you outlaw a product, you create a black market. Once the price reaches the point that exceeds the risk, there will be those who will seek to make a profit by supplying that product.
Prohibition didn’t work. The ‘war on drugs’ isn’t working. Any efforts to ban guns will meet a similar failure.
But yet our government keeps doing the same thing and expects a different result.
Kinda stupid, aint it?
jt
June 6th, 2009
11:01 am
All I know is that cocaine is alot better than Viagara and it works on women too.
That is what I was told.
TnGelding
June 6th, 2009
11:04 am
DB, Gwinnettian
June 6th, 2009
9:57 am
And it is very disappointing. Especially since it was a big issue with his supporters.
ken
June 6th, 2009
11:06 am
Underground stimulas from OBAMMA. TWO TRILLION spent on WHAT ? 10% laid off — but I know that when the wind mills, and the bridge builders come on line that we will have 100% employment. YEA YEA YEA
josef nix
June 6th, 2009
11:09 am
jt–O-si-yo–I’m not very well received this a.m. Seems I’m a whiner…
“All I know is that cocaine is alot better than Viagara and it works on women too.
That is what I was told.”
I heard the same thing, but, oops can’t go there…
TW
June 6th, 2009
11:10 am
If the rightwing wasn’t playing boogieman with marijuana, we’d have the resources to deal with this. Yet another area where the Red Scare attacks our country with much success.
Did the right also loath America before the civil rights movement?
Curious Observer
June 6th, 2009
11:11 am
What a weird morning! The President of the United States delivers a D-Day commemoration address and doesn’t sound as though he’s come straight from a moonshine still in a Texas hollow. This is going to take some getting used to.
josef nix
June 6th, 2009
11:11 am
ken–wiish I could respond, but that would be tiresome and this is some of us’s day of rest.
TnGelding
June 6th, 2009
11:12 am
I hate to admit it, but PM Brown out-orated Obama. What an inspiring speech he gave.
jt
June 6th, 2009
11:01 am
I’ll pass on both. Give me the placebo.
Michael H. Smith
June 6th, 2009
11:13 am
Got any new answers for drug addictions Lee?
However, I’ll keep my guns without apologies to Sotomayor and her boss. It helps to “peaceably” keep the liberals paranoid, the criminals, terrorists and the tyrannical among us uneasy and guessing.
That’s kinda smart, ain’t it?
josef nix
June 6th, 2009
11:17 am
Curious Observer–last time I responded to you, Jay chimed in. Not sure here, you know I am whiney and tiresome but much less cranky now that I’ve had my caffeine fix–the summation of the unnamed one (Do I need to start leaving out a vowel in h-s name now?) Haven’t heard the speech, yet. Heard the one at Buchenwald. Liked your one-liner here.
jt
June 6th, 2009
11:17 am
Gotta go to the whalemart Josef
There is nothing wrong with reactionarism.
josef nix
June 6th, 2009
11:23 am
jt–just desert me, then! Which chip was it? I’ve got so many it’s hard even for me to keep track. Let me know if Moby Rush is spotted at the Whalemart…
Viva la reaccion!
Michael H. Smith
June 6th, 2009
11:32 am
Just dropping off a little tid-bit of info on the outlawing of what is called street drugs in America. Most of the anti-drug laws were enacted via “identity politics” and were not based on scientific findings. Most of which remain somewhat inconclusive on long term use, as in the case of marijuana.
I Report :-)/You Whine :-(
June 6th, 2009
11:33 am
Whiner is insane Gee, the war on drugs was going so well until Obama took office.
You don’t even read bookman’s column, turd blossom?
An experimental oddity just two years ago, these strange semi-submarines are the cutting edge of drug trafficking today.
GFY!
I Report :-)/You Whine :-(
June 6th, 2009
11:36 am
No sonar necessary, RW, a couple of listening buoys strategically placed and soon enough you’ll have Mexican food in the water for the sharks and other creatures of the sea.
If they don’t get totally stoned first.
AmVet
June 6th, 2009
12:05 pm
65 years on, and I am still moved by the sacrifice of those Rangers and Marines who scaled those murderous cliffs in Normandy.
We owe them everything we have, and I will never forget them.