Colombia out to sink cocaine barons by banning 'drug subs'

IT SEEMS that an end to the long game of cat and mouse being played out on the high seas of the Caribbean may be in sight.

Colombian drug cartels have been smuggling cocaine in submarines, up to ten tons at a go, with impunity – until now. Colombia's congress has just passed a law punishing the building of semi-submersible vessels with up to 12 years in prison, and sentences of up to 14 years for people who use such vessels to transport drugs.

The legislation is a bid to crack down on wily crews who, once they are detected by the Colombian navy, simply don life jackets and scuttle the subs, sending the incriminating evidence to the bottom of the sea.

"This law will change everything for us," said Admiral Guillermo Barrera, the head of Colombia's navy. "Instead of an anti-narcotics operation turning into a rescue mission when the submarines are sunk, we will now be able to fish the crew out of the water and charge them."

The United States last year introduced similar legislation that has allowed it to prosecute 12 traffickers caught out at sea. "It's very likely a game-changer," said Jay Bergman, regional director of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, based in Colombia. "You don't get a get-out-of-jail free card anymore."

Drug subs have become the cartels' preferred method of transportation: over the past six years, 37 have been intercepted by the navy. Six of those were during this month.

Between them, they had the capacity to move 40 tons of cocaine which, once it reaches US shores is worth $1 billion (£612 million).

Relieved of their cargo, submarines – which cost about £500,000 to build – are sunk. The drug subs are technically semi-submersibles, which sit with most of the hull under the waterline. Built of fibreglass in rudimentary jungle workshops along the Pacific and Caribbean coasts, they are very difficult to detect using normal radar, even though they can be up to 60ft long. One US anti-drug official has described searching for them as "looking for a floating log in the middle of the ocean".

Initially known in the Colombian underworld as "coffins", because several of the early models sank without trace, the subs now boast satellite guidance systems and 300hp engines, capable of tanking ten miles an hour across the open seas.

Privately, Colombian and US drug authorities admit that the interception rate is usually only about 15 per cent of what makes it on to the streets. It is estimated that up to 480 tons of cocaine would be transported on semi-submersibles this year.

Previously, drugs traffickers used human mules carrying drugs on board passenger aircraft. Then they bought their own planes and flew directly to the United States. When these started being intercepted, or even shot down, the traffickers developed super-fast speedboats.

Authorities are in no doubt that the smugglers will soon invent a new way to traffic cocaine. But they may already have come up with the next step – a remote-controlled, fully operational submarine that can dive below the waves.