Submission + - Drug Runners Perfect Long Range Subs
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Jim Popkin writes that for decades, Colombian drug runners have pursued their trade with diabolical ingenuity, staying a step ahead of authorities by coming up with one innovation after another. Now authorities have captured a 74-foot camouflaged submarine—nearly twice as long as a city bus—with twin propellers and a 5-foot conning tower that with a crew of four to six, has a maximum operational range of 6,800 nautical miles on the surface, can go 10 days without refueling and was probably designed to ferry cocaine underwater to Mexico. “This is a quantum leap in technology,” says Jay Bergman, the DEA's top official in South America. “It poses some formidable challenges.” The vessel carries a payload of 9 tons of cocaine with a street value of about $250 million and uses a GPS chart plotter with side-scan capabilities, a high-frequency radio, an electro-optical periscope and an infrared camera mounted on the conning tower—visual aids that supplement two miniature windows in the makeshift cockpit. Smuggling huge rolls of Kevlar, four engines, 249 back-breaking batteries, and thousands of obscure marine parts to a remote equatorial shipyard takes patience, money, and cojones. But does building a homemade submarine also take real smarts? “This is the most sophisticated sub we’ve seen to date,” says Jon Wallace who has headed the Personal Submersibles Organization, or Psubs, for 15 years. “It’s a very good design in terms of shape and controls.” In the meantime jungle shipbuilders continue to perfect their craft. “These efforts have been in the making for at least 17 years, since the time of Escobar,” says Miguel Angel Montoya. “It would be realistic to assume that there is a sub en route to Mexico or Europe at this very moment.”"
