Drug Submarines?
Oscar Wilde, the famous Irish author, wrote “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”. This is definitely true when you compare Captain Nemo who is a fictional character in Jules Verne’s 1870 Science Fiction Classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to drug cartels using submarines to transport illegal drugs to North America.
Captain Nemo is the mysterious villain in 20,000 Leagues. He is in modern terms, a non-state actor who sails the world in his own submarine sinking enemy ships and supporting revolts against established governments.
Today, drug cartels operating from South America are like Captain Nemo. They are using clandestinely built submarines to help transport illegal narcotics from South America to the United States. They have made at sea drug interdiction more difficult. The U.S. in addition to the air and ocean’s surface now has to worry about what is traveling below the waves.
Drug submarines are not only increasing in number but also improving in their abilities to elude the U.S. led drug interdiction efforts. The Department of Homeland Security in 2008 stated these drug submarines accounted for 32 percent of all illegal narcotics shipped to the United States.
There are three types of drug submarines: Low Profile Vessels (LPVs), Self-Propelled Semi-Submersibles (SPSS), and Fully Submersible Vessels (FSV). Byron Ramirez and Robert J. Bunker in Narco-Submarines Specially Fabricated Vessel for Drug Smuggling Purposes provide these general descriptions of these vessels:
SPSS are boats that fill their ballast tank lowering their profiles up to about two feet. This makes them harder to detect. They cost about one million U.S. dollars to build, can carry up to 2 tons of narcotics (approximately 40 million U.S. dollars). They are relatively speaking the easiest drug submarine to detect. There were 10 SPSSs interdicted between 1993 and 2013 which is approximately thirty percent of the 33 narco-submarines interdicted.
LPVs are simply boats whose hull does not extend that far above their waterline. They are built using a combination of fiber glass and lead for heat shielding. They are painted to match the ocean, have modern navigation equipment, and operate using water-cooled engines. They have a crew of five, cost up to one million dollars to build, and can deliver up to ten tons of narcotics (200 million U.S. dollars). They cannot submerge themselves but are extremely difficult to detect. There were 22 LPVs interdicted between 1993 and 2013 which account for about sixty seven percent of the 33 narco-submarines interdicted.
Fully Submersible Vessels (FSV) are actual submarines! They can travel underwater at a depth of 30 feet, have modern electronics, and cost between two to four million to build. They have a range of up to 2000 miles and can carry up to 10 ten tons of narcotics (200 million U.S. dollars). There was one FSV interdicted between 1993 and 2013.
Narco-submarines have some extremely worrisome implications. They are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their design. They are being built by hand in remote jungles. They do not cost that much to build, generate enormous profits, and can elude the U.S.’s most sophisticated and extremely costly interdiction efforts.
These relatively low cost technical innovations represent something fundamentally new in the world and in the Drug War’s cat and mouse game. Fleets of submarines are no longer the province on nations. Knowledge and technical capabilities have spread providing the ingenious with access to some of the world’s most amazing technologies.
Unfortunately, drug cartels and their submarines are all too real while Captain Nemo is a fictional villain.
