Why Narco-subs are Drug Smuggling Vessels of Choice
By: Don Simkovich
Tags: Government, True Crime, Drugs, Crime, Society

Why Narco-subs are Drug Smuggling Vessels of Choice

They can efficiently sail thousands of nautical miles to deliver tons of cocaine in prime markets.

A narco-sub in August 2007 immediately before the Coast Guard seizes it. Photo by U.S. Coast Guard.

Crewmen on the Coast Guard cutter Munro sped through the Pacific Ocean, pulling alongside a submarine sailing at the water’s surface, gauging the right moment to leap on top. One misstep and the crew, dressed in full combat gear, could slip in between the vessels or into the choppy surf and risk drowning. The sub was suspected of carrying illegal narcotics.

As the cutter aimed and maneuvered closer, the crewmen readied themselves and then leapt on top of the semi-submersible boat, went to the hatch and pounded on it with rifles at the ready. The hatch opened and a shaken crew member raised his hands as the Coast Guard sailors shouted surrender instructions.

The submarine was escorted to shore, the crew arrested and 16,000 pounds of cocaine confiscated. The June 17, 2019 incident in the eastern Pacific Ocean was one of 14 drug seizures that the crew of the Munro made in three months, capturing 39,000 pounds of cocaine and 933 pounds of marijuana with a street value worth over $569 million dollars.

But although this and other drug-running vessels known as “narco-subs” were caught, others have reached their destinations successfully.

What are narco-subs?

Travel south to the Pacific side of South America and pull back the thick vegetation lining Colombia’s rivers that meet the ocean. Sail inland, navigate into the proper tributaries and flashes from welders’ torches will greet you as the next narco-sub is getting ready for its journey.

Colombia and Ecuador are strategic locations for building vessel after vessel of watercraft that sail just below the ocean’s surface to try and escape detection from military and law enforcement. With a crew of no more than a few men and the ability to haul tons of cocaine and other illicit drugs, narco-subs head north off Mexico’s coast and on toward the money-rich cities of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.

The subs cost up to two million dollars to build and take about a year, but the investment can return up to one hundred times that amount.

Many of the subs now produced are capable of carrying ten tons of cocaine and they’re now making their way to Europe as well. Spanish police captured a narco-sub off its coast in November 2019, the first time that one was detected and caught off the coast of Spain. The craft measured 68 feet in length and was seven-and-a-half feet wide, much larger than most narco-subs.

Another sub was caught in recent months by Peruvian officials as it was sailing north to Mexico, where it was scheduled to dock and transfer a cocaine shipment that would eventually make its way to Eastern Europe and Serbia.

These recent captures will only slow the shipment of illicit drugs. For every sub caught, others sail undetected.

2020 as year of the narco-sub

As the calendar turned into January 2020, a patrol plane tracked a crew in a narco-sub that surfaced in the waters off Central America and started tossing bales of cocaine overboard to destroy evidence before the Costa Rican authorities could arrest them.

In years past, sexy speed boats that zipped powerfully through the ocean were seen as the drug-smuggling craft of choice. Now narco-subs are filing that top spot.

The narco crews are reducing the size of the loads they carry and building more subs, as revealed in this article by H.I. Sutton U.S. Coast Guard Could Face a Narco Submarine Epidemic in 2020.

Sutton also wrote about an unusual type of sub in Spain: Completely New Type of Narco Submarine Discovered in the Atlantic. It’s known as a Ghost Glider and doesn’t sit as low in the water as narco-subs from Latin America.

In August, Colombian authorities nabbed a narco-sub aiming to enrich Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel with a metric ton of cocaine on board, worth $ 18.6 million.

What’s driving the traffic

The product is plentiful, the demand for cocaine remains high and the profit potential is enormous. Drug cartels will take the risk of having lower level personnel caught in order to realize the tremendous amount of money that can be made off one shipment.

Coca harvests in Colombia have stayed at historic levels but the 2017–18 period is the first time they haven’t increased since 2012, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. So even if harvests are plateauing, they’re doing so at high levels and remain almost three times higher than in 2008.

Fighting the subs requires international alliances

The United States remains a prime market and many drug seizures happen in or near the U.S. and western Europe. A trend that’s been happening for the past decade is that more seizures are occurring near the countries where cocaine production starts.

In the past, cocaine typically moved from Colombia and Bolivia via ocean containers to Mexico and then by land to the U.S. as noted in a 2008 report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Narco-subs make it possible to skip the rigorous overland route and move shipments north via the ocean.

U.S. agencies cooperating include the Coast Guard, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Navy, Drug Enforcement Administration and law enforcement agencies throughout Latin America. The DEA “is the single point-of-contact for drug and drug money-laundering investigations overseas,” as stated on the agency’s website.

The DEA provides training and equipment to other countries along with investigative assistance.

Slowing the rate of drug trafficking will continue as a challenge since so much money is at stake. Major drug cartels are Mexican and Colombian and generate from $18 billion a year to $39 billion in drug-related income. That kind of money will allow the cartels to continue taking risks and distributing the goods.

Cover for Tom Stone: Subterfuge, detective thriller, used by permission of Don Simkovich and Lon Casler Bixby

My co-author and I used the background information in our novel Tom Stone: Subterfuge, about a narco-sub off the coast of Malibu, California and tackling the subject of human trafficking.

In the story, a man and his son are taken from their fishing village in Baja California, forced onto a narco-sub and disaster strikes. Detective Tom Stone and his crew uncover drug smugglers trying a new trick.

The story doesn’t glorify smuggling in any way, but instead shows the resolve of the victim to overcome evil with good.

Smugglers will spend millions to make tens or hundreds of millions. And in the process destroy good people. A network of law enforcement and military must stop them cold. Stone cold.