Newsweek – The Colombian Navy says it has uncovered a clandestine shipyard housing two “semi-submersible” vessels and other equipment for shipping tons of illegal drugs in a rural village of a municipality along the Pacific Ocean.

(Thanks to Alain)

Vice – Óscar Moreno Ricardo spent two decades building submersibles that drug-traffickers use to move cocaine from Colombia to the United States and other countries in the region.

(Thanks to Alain)

USNI News – Central and South American drug runners are continuing to create new specialized smuggling vessels to move narcotics into the U.S., as evidenced by a sophisticated electric submersible seized earlier this month.

CIMSEC – The development of the Colombian Navy in the last decade has revealed an assertive regional naval force with the potential to evolve into a provider of regional security. This vision has materialized under the purpose of becoming a “medium regional force projection navy” with the right tools to exert sea control and cooperate with others to share what the Colombian military has learned during its historical fight against insurgencies and criminals. All of this, however, seems to be at risk…

– CIMSEC – Drug submarines (hereafter referred to as narcosubmarines) are manufactured in the thick jungles of eastern Colombia and are not the primitive vessels of one’s imagination. FARC’s narcosubmarines boast sophisticated anti-detection features and navigation, can haul up to 10 tons of cocaine, and can cost upwards of ten million U.S. dollars.

DefenseTech – A New ‘Submarine’ Threat

Norman Polmar writes that the increased use of semi-submersibles to bring drugs into the United States has raised the specter of similar craft being employed to transport terrorists, explosives, and elicit funds into the country. But the likelihood of terrorists going that route is extremely unlikely.

New York Times Magazine – Drug-Sub Culture

A look at the latest way to get drugs out of Columbia by submarine.

Washington Post – In the annals of the drug trade, traffickers have swallowed cocaine pellets, dissolved the powder into ceramics and flown the drug as far as Africa on flimsy planes — anything to elude detection and get a lucrative product to market. Now, the cartels seem to be increasingly going beneath the waves, relying on submarines built in clandestine jungle shipyards to move tons of cocaine.
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