In a story that reminded me a lot of the mythical Scottish football fans sailing to Argentina in 1974 in a submarine to watch their team 'win the world cup (which of course they didn't)', the US coast guards made an unusual interception earlier this year. Their US Navy Plane radar indicated an unknown underwater craft in their territorial waters, and no doubt with their minds full of visions of the mystery subs off the Swedish coast, or maybe even of the Cuba crisis, they raced out to intercept it.
What they found was a little more prosaic but no less threatening to the civil society ... It was drug smugglers running in on the pacific seaboard from somewhere 200 miles south of Mexico.
However apart from the cargo of 8 tons of cocaine worth £156 million, this wasn't the usual drug bust of a fast race boat, no this was a rather slower craft. A home made submarine, or perhaps semi-submersible is a better term.
The vessel was approximately 40 feet in length and was sailing mostly underwater, with only the cockpit and exhaust above the waterline. No doubt the four smugglers on board thought that they would be nearly invisible, especially at night, but of course radar doesn't care whether its dark or not.
The coast guard emptied 6 tons of the cocaine on to their own vessel and left 2 tons on-board as ballast, with the intention of towing the vessel back to a US port. However, sadly, as they towed it, it turned turtle and sank, taking £39 million pounds worth of cocaine to bottom with it ....
Now, even I am quickly wondered if that was a prize worth tracking (dismissed as impracticable) ...... but I would like to bet that whomever came up with the semi-submersible, is now feverishly working on a fully submersible model that
(a) Can evade US Naval and Coast Guard patrols, and / or
(b) Can find a retrieve £39 million pounds of Cocaine from the seabed (if it was in watertight packages).
Human invention is a wonderful thing .....
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| Narco Subs Are Getting More Inventive .... Capt Nemo Would Be Flattered. |
What they found was a little more prosaic but no less threatening to the civil society ... It was drug smugglers running in on the pacific seaboard from somewhere 200 miles south of Mexico.
However apart from the cargo of 8 tons of cocaine worth £156 million, this wasn't the usual drug bust of a fast race boat, no this was a rather slower craft. A home made submarine, or perhaps semi-submersible is a better term.
The vessel was approximately 40 feet in length and was sailing mostly underwater, with only the cockpit and exhaust above the waterline. No doubt the four smugglers on board thought that they would be nearly invisible, especially at night, but of course radar doesn't care whether its dark or not.
The coast guard emptied 6 tons of the cocaine on to their own vessel and left 2 tons on-board as ballast, with the intention of towing the vessel back to a US port. However, sadly, as they towed it, it turned turtle and sank, taking £39 million pounds worth of cocaine to bottom with it ....
Now, even I am quickly wondered if that was a prize worth tracking (dismissed as impracticable) ...... but I would like to bet that whomever came up with the semi-submersible, is now feverishly working on a fully submersible model that
(a) Can evade US Naval and Coast Guard patrols, and / or
(b) Can find a retrieve £39 million pounds of Cocaine from the seabed (if it was in watertight packages).
Human invention is a wonderful thing .....
Evidently not inventive enough. But then the really inventive drug smuggling schemes, should they exist, were not discovered and carried out their missions successfully and undiscovered. I suspect that they don't actually exist and the only successes are due to persistence in the use of expendable drug mules.
ReplyDeleteWell the corruption method probably works better than most in the narco-states. But otherwise your probably right. Its like the Chinese soldier waves in the Korean war, where a disregard for casualties and sheer numbers bring success at an acceptable price to the dealers.
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