Drug smugglers now use minisubs; terrorists may use them, too

is harder to track than an airplane or a regular boat and it does not rely on an extensive network of corruption the way smuggling through a container port might. ”

The vessels, according to officials in Florida who have studied a captured semi-submersible, are outfitted with quiet diesel engines and dual propellers, features commonly found on military submarines. They are carefully ballasted and are designed so that the top deck breaks the water’s surface by no more than eighteen inches — just enough to take in oxygen and release exhaust. The vessels are very difficult to detect by radar and are all but impossible to see from more than a few thousand yards away. “That is a very, very low profile,” said Air Force Colonel Dennis Ployer, who runs the security and intelligence directorate at SOUTHCOM headquarters in Miami. Indeed, SOUTHCOM asserts that the Colombian drug cartels are almost certainly receiving highly advanced technical assistance to fabricate the vessels, but declined to discuss where they believe that help is coming from. “Where the technology is going right now they most likely have to have some outside expertise,” said Renee Novakoff, a senior analyst at the military command.

Pike believes the semi-submersibles’ physical characteristics are characteristic of naval designs from Russia — a key destination for Colombian cocaine and where military submarine designers have been desperate for work since the Soviet Union dissolved, diminishing its armed forces. “During the Cold War the Russians had hundreds of submarines and their submarine-building has collapsed,” Pike said. “There is already senior-level contact between Russian gangsters and Colombian gangsters. There are enough mobsters in Russia to make the approach for [the Colombian drug organizations].”

Despite the semi-submersible’s multimillion-dollar price tag, they are apparently considered disposable, one-way transportation: After delivering their cargo at a pre-determined drop-off point, they are abandoned at sea. Nevertheless, as a means of delivering such large drug payloads, the vessels appear to be paying for themselves many times over. One kilogram of cocaine can fetch tens of thousands of dollars on the street, and each semi-submersible can carry well over 9,000 kilos — a payload worth tens of millions of dollars or more. “They are sophisticated vessels,” said Rear Admiral Steve Branham, commander of the Seventh Coast Guard District in Miami, who said the vessels have been detected in both the Caribbean and in the Eastern Pacific off the coast of Mexico. “They are able to carry their cargo readily at a fairly good speed [and] they are easily scuttled. That makes it harder for us to collect evidence,” he added.

In several recent incidents, crew members were captured after scuttling their craft but authorities released them because there was no physical evidence of wrongdoing, Branham said. Legislation now being considered by Congress aims to address that loophole by outlawing the use of semi-submersibles, which do not fly the flag of their country of origin as required of other sea-going vessels. Branham, whose Coast Guard district encompasses 1.8 million square miles, said the submersibles — usually with a crew of no more than two — appear to make contact with other private vessels at sea to provision them with food and water on their long journeys from South America. That, he said, is another sign that the semi-submersible smuggling business may be maturing into a “niche industry” that caters to the drug cartels but could be hired to deliver any cargo. Previously, smugglers “were not highly paid,” he said. “They were the average Joe. Now, with semi-submersible vessels and supply vessels at way points … there is a much more elaborate transportation system than there used to be.”

Where it could evolve next is what worries U.S. security officials and private analysts. Stephen Flynn, a former Coast Guard officer and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the vessels “could have more sober homeland security implications.” He adds that “They have created a far more sophisticated and, from a security perspective, potentially far more daunting maritime threat. If you are figuring out how to evade US borders this is clearly a more advanced avenue.”