Colombia’s navy announced on Friday that it had seized the biggest narco-submarine in Colombian history, measuring 30 metres long and three metres wide, with three tonnes of cocaine on board.
The semi-submersible vessel was stopped on Tuesday as it headed for Central America, one of the busiest routes for illegal trafficking to the United States, the world’s main consumer of Colombian cocaine.
The footage released by the Colombian authorities showed the long boat on the water, along with its cargo - hundreds of packets of drugs labelled ‘Toyota’ - being unloaded on land.
(Traffickers like to give a signature, often chosen from among the world’s top brands, to their shipments).
The footage also showed three captured men.
This was the largest semi-submersible identified since such seizures began in 1993 in Colombia.
The three Colombian suspects arrested in the latest seizure said they were coerced by a drug-trafficking organisation into driving the ship with the drugs to Central America.
The three men, aged 63, 54 and 45, were taken to the southern town of Tumaco to be handed over to the courts.
The navy estimates that the seizure represents a loss of $103 million (nearly €95 million) for the traffickers.
The clandestinely made boats, which are both rustic and light, travel close to the surface of the water, cover longer distances than the authorities’ speedboats and are hard to spot.
Colombian law punishes the use, construction, marketing, possession and transportation of semi-submersibles with prison sentences of up to 14 years.
