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Ecuador police seize 100-foot narco-submarine being built secretly

The vessel is capable of carrying six people and 10 tons of cocaine on underwater voyages lasting up to 10 days, authorities say. Its discovery is a 'game changer' for U.S. drug interdiction efforts.

July 06, 2010|By Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Bogota, Colombia — Police in Ecuador seized a 100-foot submarine being built by suspected drug traffickers capable of carrying a crew of six and 10 tons of cocaine on underwater voyages lasting up to 10 days — a "game changer" for U.S. anti-drug and border security efforts, officials said Monday.

A raid Friday by 120 police officers and soldiers netted the fiberglass sub as it was nearing completion in a clandestine "industrial complex" hidden in mangrove swamps near San Lorenzo, a town just south of the Colombian border.


The craft was outfitted with a conning tower, a periscope, air conditioning and "scrubbers" to purify the air, and bunks for a maximum crew of six. But what set the craft apart from semi-submersible craft that drug traffickers have used for years was a complex ballast system that would have enabled it to dive as deep as 65 feet before surfacing.

Previously, drug traffickers were known to use ships that resembled submarines but that actually cruised just below the ocean surface to avoid visual detection.

Since 2006, when the first semi-submersible craft was detected, 47 have been captured at sea and on land, including 17 last year. But so far this year, only three such craft have been captured. The number of voyages has probably dropped, officials said, because of the success in detecting the vessels with a variety of methods, including aircraft that can identify their wakes in the water.

The sub that Ecuadorean police seized on their Pacific coast is much more technologically advanced and will require the U.S. and its allies in the drug war to deploy "every resource" in anti-submarine warfare technology, said Jay Bergman, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Andean director.

Those countermeasures could include added oceangoing and airborne surveillance vessels and aircraft, he said.

"This is a game changer for us and will prompt an array of countermeasures," Bergman said in a telephone interview. "This has the national security community concerned as much as the drug interdiction community."

U.S. military officials have long expressed the fear that narco-submarines could, in addition to carrying illicit drugs, be used to smuggle terrorists to U.S. shores or nearby.

One Ecuadorean national was captured by police and soldiers, some of whom swooped in by helicopter. The suspect is cooperating with authorities. The shipyard included a camp that was big enough to accommodate 50 workers, officials said.