revelarts
02-25-2011, 03:50 PM
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/7415756.html
"The only narco submarine ever captured — a 73-foot-long camouflaged vessel capable of carrying at least 7 tons of cocaine while cruising stealthily beneath the ocean's surface — sits raised on concrete blocks in a South American seaport.
Its belly is caked with grime. Its hatch is open.
Many of its secrets are no more.
In the seven months since the game-changing discovery of the submarine, built by drug traffickers in a covert shipyard deep in the Ecuadorean jungle, naval experts from multiple countries have studied the vessel.
Their conclusion: It is the "real deal" — fully capable of making multiple journeys to North America.
"There is nothing amateur about it," said Jay Bergman, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's chief of the Andes region. "It is everything it is supposed to be. It is a bona fide long-range, fully submersible craft."
The journey would have been tough but profitable for the sub, which has no name and was caught in July before its maiden voyage.
Seven tons of pure cocaine would easily be worth $100 million in Texas. That's 20 times the estimated $5 million cost of building the sub.
"It wasn't the Love Boat," Bergman said. "This is about getting black-market cargo from Point A to Point B … just trying to make sure they survived the journey and reaped the bounty."
There is no galley or bed, just a small porthole and toilet to accommodate a crew of four or five. A commercial fish-finder device was mounted on the front to allow a pilot inside to see what was ahead.
Unanswered questions
Officials said the most likely travel route for the sub would have been to sneak north along the Pacific coast and unload its illicit cargo during at-sea rendezvous with boats. The cocaine would be taken ashore to Central America or Mexico, where it would be smuggled over land into the United States.
The sub is far smaller than military subs but adds a new dimension to the longtime cat-and-mouse game of trying to catch large loads of cocaine leaving South America via ships and planes.
Officials are poring over the possibilities that come with a criminal organization having the contacts and ability to build a real sub.
"The U.S. military is taking this threat very seriously and thinking through all the implications of this sort of platform," said Laurence McCabe, a U.S. Naval War College professor of national security affairs specializing in Latin America.
And if the submarine could carry drugs, he pointed out, it could carry terrorists.
Among the most important questions not yet answered: Who designed the sub, and who were the naval mercenaries ready to pilot it?
"They have now entered into a world of fairly elite, specialized skill sets, which are much easier to track and identify," McCabe said. "They are innovative people, and they are smart, but at some point you run into a technology wall and need to bring in special people."
The vessel, which was captured in a brackish tributary leading to the Pacific Ocean, has since been towed to Ecuador's largest city, Guayaquil..... "
"The only narco submarine ever captured — a 73-foot-long camouflaged vessel capable of carrying at least 7 tons of cocaine while cruising stealthily beneath the ocean's surface — sits raised on concrete blocks in a South American seaport.
Its belly is caked with grime. Its hatch is open.
Many of its secrets are no more.
In the seven months since the game-changing discovery of the submarine, built by drug traffickers in a covert shipyard deep in the Ecuadorean jungle, naval experts from multiple countries have studied the vessel.
Their conclusion: It is the "real deal" — fully capable of making multiple journeys to North America.
"There is nothing amateur about it," said Jay Bergman, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's chief of the Andes region. "It is everything it is supposed to be. It is a bona fide long-range, fully submersible craft."
The journey would have been tough but profitable for the sub, which has no name and was caught in July before its maiden voyage.
Seven tons of pure cocaine would easily be worth $100 million in Texas. That's 20 times the estimated $5 million cost of building the sub.
"It wasn't the Love Boat," Bergman said. "This is about getting black-market cargo from Point A to Point B … just trying to make sure they survived the journey and reaped the bounty."
There is no galley or bed, just a small porthole and toilet to accommodate a crew of four or five. A commercial fish-finder device was mounted on the front to allow a pilot inside to see what was ahead.
Unanswered questions
Officials said the most likely travel route for the sub would have been to sneak north along the Pacific coast and unload its illicit cargo during at-sea rendezvous with boats. The cocaine would be taken ashore to Central America or Mexico, where it would be smuggled over land into the United States.
The sub is far smaller than military subs but adds a new dimension to the longtime cat-and-mouse game of trying to catch large loads of cocaine leaving South America via ships and planes.
Officials are poring over the possibilities that come with a criminal organization having the contacts and ability to build a real sub.
"The U.S. military is taking this threat very seriously and thinking through all the implications of this sort of platform," said Laurence McCabe, a U.S. Naval War College professor of national security affairs specializing in Latin America.
And if the submarine could carry drugs, he pointed out, it could carry terrorists.
Among the most important questions not yet answered: Who designed the sub, and who were the naval mercenaries ready to pilot it?
"They have now entered into a world of fairly elite, specialized skill sets, which are much easier to track and identify," McCabe said. "They are innovative people, and they are smart, but at some point you run into a technology wall and need to bring in special people."
The vessel, which was captured in a brackish tributary leading to the Pacific Ocean, has since been towed to Ecuador's largest city, Guayaquil..... "