Drug smugglers are individuals who attempt to transport illegal drugs from one country to another. They come up with all kinds of inventive ways to accomplish this. They could, for example, use speed boats, tunnels, food products, inside of humans, and even submarines. That last one was recently used off the coast of Colombia, but it turned out to be a really bad idea.
A 49-foot-long homemade submarine known as a narco sub was discovered floating in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Colombia recently. When the Colombian Navy searched it, they discovered two bodies and over 2.6 tons of cocaine. On the black market, the drugs were worth more than $87.7 million.
According to the Colombian Ministry of National Defense, the two survivors on the sub were discovered in “poor health conditions on the outside of the vessel.” The toxic gases from the fuel caused an accident on board.
Video of the discovery shows Navy personnel pulling packages of cocaine out of the vessel.
Colombia seizes 5800 pounds of cocaine from a submarine pic.twitter.com/tkrPuXqgq7
— Insider News (@InsiderNews) March 16, 2023
Video footage shows Navy personnel removing cocaine packages from the submarine. According to Vice, the ship was most likely on its way to Central America when the accident occurred. Many drugs destined for the United States pass through that region first.
According to the United Nations Office on Drug Crime, Colombian smugglers typically transport their drugs by sea to Mexico or Central America. They then use land routes to enter the United States and Canada. Authorities in the United States estimate that 90% of cocaine entering the country comes through the US-Mexico border.
Buzzfeed News produced a video report in 2020 demonstrating how much work smugglers put into these submarines. The vessels are designed to avoid detection and are frequently difficult for authorities to locate.
Over the years, the US Coast Guard has discovered numerous narco subs and prevented millions of dollars in drugs from entering the country.
