Submarine Carrying Three Tons of Cocaine Seized off the Coast of Spain

(Photo : Reuters)

Illegal drugs have become prevalent nowadays. In a previous article of Latin Post, it was mentioned that, El Mencho, a Mexican drug kingpin, has an efficient way of selling illegal drugs and infiltrating the poor areas of America. He sells his illegal drugs retail, through the streets compared to the infamous, and now arrested, El Chapo who's drugs were sold as wholesale.

This time, other illegal drugs were reported seized, but not along the streets or in any landmarks but off the coast of Spain. In a report from CNA, a submarine carrying three tons of cocaine worth an estimated $110 million was seized over the weekend. The Spanish police seized the 20-meter-long submarine on Saturday along the coast of the Galicia region. The police were only able to make the discovery after they refloated the vessel after three days. They suspected that the vessel contains something, because it had been there for three days, and no one had come to it. So they decided to tow it in and refloat the vessel. 

In a statement released by the Spanish Police, they said that when they towed the vessel they found out 152 bundles containing roughly three tons of cocaine. The use of submarine is not uncommon, in the past few years, drug traffickers from Colombia have been caught delivering drugs to Mexico then to the United States using submarines. However, the Spanish police said that this is the very first time that they detected a submarine delivering illegal drugs to Europe.

Javier Losada de Azpiazu, the central government representative in Galicia, told the reporters that the drugs captured in the vessel have a street value of 100 million euros. Meanwhile, there are many speculations as to the origin of the vessel. A reliable source said that Aspiazu mentioned that the vessel is coming from South America however this is not yet a piece of confirmed information. Because of the rarity of the event in Europe, there were more than 240 agents who took part in the operation. Agents and police from Brazil, Portugal, and the United States. Moreover, during the operation, they captured two Ecuadorians who are now in police custody while one other managed to escape.

The submarine is said to have the capacity of carrying and transporting upto five ton of cocaine. The professor of U.S Army War College in Pennsylvania, Robert J. Bunker, has spent years studying drug cartels and he said that the use of submarine as means of transporting drugs began as early as 2005. He said that the vessels or submarines were built in the poor areas of Ecuador, Colombia, and Guyana.

Bunker said: "The best candidates to man such submarines would be fishermen with the ability to navigate in the open sea and be able to fix the onboard engines and other vessel systems if they should break down." The most alarming is based on study of Bunker's where he found that there are thousands of vessels built already that are intended to carry narcotics. However, most are semi-submarines built partially submerged and cannot dive in the deep part of the ocean like more sophisticated submarines.

The reason why Galicia is the entry point of the drug cartel is reportedly because it is one of Spain's poorest regions. Aside from this, the Galicia region is also surrounded by coves, caves, and inlets, making it a virtual paradise for drug cartels.

The seizure of $110 million cocaine is the second-highest proportion in Europe, after officials in Belgium seized 41 tons.