Colombia captures first narco-submarine of 2024, with almost 1,765 pounds of cocaine
Colombia has intercepted its first narco-submarine of the year, the navy said Monday, as drug traffickers in the South American country produce record amounts of cocaine destined for Europe and the United States.
The submersible was intercepted Saturday morning off Colombia’s Pacific Coast, navy spokesman Capt. Wilmer Roa said. The 49-foot-long homemade craft was carrying almost 1,765 pounds of cocaine in small packages the size of bricks. The packets were stamped with images of scorpions and Mexican flags.
“In reality, this was a small” seizure, Roa said. “We’ve caught submarines with almost 3,500 kilos,” or 7,716 pounds, of the drug.
Roa said that, last year, the navy captured 10 narco-submarines.
Colombia’s government has struggled to limit cocaine production in recent years, as rebel groups and drug trafficking gangs take over territory abandoned by Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas following the group’s 2016 peace deal with the government.
According to the United Nation’s office for Drug and Crime, the area planted with coca bushes in Colombia reached an all-time high of 568,000 acres in 2022, with potential cocaine production also rising to 1,700 tons — a 24% increase from the previous year.
Customs agents pulled almost 2 tons of drugs from dozens of vats of fiery jalapeño paste that had been seized from a commercial tractor-trailer near the Otay Mesa border.
But as cocaine production increases in Colombia, Ecuador is becoming a popular route to smuggle the drug.
On Saturday, officials in Ecuador announced that they had also seized a submarine carrying 3.2 tons of cocaine. The submarine was captured with information supplied by Colombia’s navy.
Roa said that drug traffickers use the hulls of speedboats to make the submersibles and adapt them so that they can travel slightly under the surface of the sea.
“Some people die inside these machines because they experience mechanical failures or have very small ducts for letting in fresh air,” he said.
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