Underwater terrorismFBI training elite deep-diving counterterrorism unit

To bolster its counterterrorism capabilities, the FBI has created an elite group of special agents trained to track terrorism underwater.

Next year the ten-member Technical Dive Team will begin searching for evidence left behind by international terrorists in waters contaminated by chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear waste.

Pointing to the 2008 attack in Mumbai, India where terrorists entered the city by boat, supervisory special agent James Tullbane, a Technical Dive Team member, said, “There have been enough scenarios recently,” to justify the creation of the special unit.

“If you look at Mumbai and you look at various international incidents that occurred where there’s attacks on American civilians or attacks on American interests where water has been involved, … we determined that we really do need to expand our capabilities,” he said.

The Technical Dive Team was created last year with the primary mission of gathering evidence following a terrorist attack to help find and prosecute those responsible.

Unlike existing FBI dive teams, the Technical Dive Team can operate in waters contaminated with hazardous materials and investigate far deeper than others.

Instead of using air tanks, the divers use a hose connected to a surface supply system.

“It not only provides the air, it collects the air that you exhale and brings it back to the surface,” explained Michael Tyms, the team’s program manager.

The divers are also equipped with special dive suits that come with a steel helmet so they can operate safely in contaminated water without being exposed to dangerous toxins. These suits also enable divers to reach depths of 300 feet, compared to 130 feet, which is considered safe for most recreational dives.

The team is currently in the midst of its two-year training program and will not be fully operational until next year when it completes all of its certifications, but this has not stopped the team from performing some less dangerous missions.

Most recently, the team was called in several weeks ago to retrieve a large shipment of drugs that had been stashed away in a sunk “narco sub.” The U.S. Coast Guard had initially spotted the vessel off the coast of Honduras, and the crew quickly sank the semi-submersible vessel before they were apprehended.

“The thought was, ‘Hey, somebody could go down and retrieve those narcotics,’” said Tyms. “So [the Coast Guard] called us and we said, ‘Yep that’s the type of mission we could do.’”

Using sonar and their special dive suits, the FBI dive team was able to successfully find and retrieve nearly 15,000 pounds of cocaine hidden in the sub’s cargo hold eighty-feet below the surface.

“Once it sunk, diesel (fuel) was leaking out into the water, into the cargo hold,” said Tyms.

It took eight divers twenty-four hours and fifteen dives to bring up all the cocaine which had an estimated street value of $180 million.