The largest Colombian “narco sub” ever recorded — some 30 meters (100 feet) long and three meters wide — has been decommissioned in the Pacific, with three tons of cocaine found on board, the country’s navy reported Friday. The semi-submersible vessel was intercepted Tuesday on its way to Central America, one of the most common routes for drug smuggling to the United States, the world’s largest consumer of Colombian cocaine.
The detained crew — aged 45, 54 and 63 — are all Colombians and claimed to have been “forced by a drug trafficking organization” to take the sub to Central America, the navy said in a statement.
In three decades, the Colombian navy has seized 228 such drug-laden semi-submersibles, which are never fully underwater but used by traffickers to elude detection by coast guard and other authorities.
Some were bound for the United States, while others were intercepted in the Atlantic, headed for Europe.
This was the largest Colombian narco sub de-commissioned since records began in 1993. The seizure represented a blow of some $103 million to the drug trade, the navy said.—AFP
