Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Meanwhile - under the sea
A lot of money can buy a lot of innovation.
This seems almost too much to believe...
This seems almost too much to believe...
The Associated Press's Frank Bajak reports:
"Colombian Navy chief Adm. Guillermo Barrera told a counterterrorism conference in Bogota last week that 23 semi-submersibles capable of carrying between 4 and 10 metric tons each have been seized in the past three years.
Though semi-submersibles aren't new to cocaine transport, a bigger, sleeker, more sophisticated variety that average about 60 feet (18 meters) in length began emerging three years ago. Earlier versions, christened 'floating coffins,' couldn't compete with fishing trawlers and speed boats known as 'go-fasts' for maritime transport of drugs.
But drug agents started policing trawlers better, leading traffickers to new methods.
With just over a foot of above-water clearance and V-shaped prows designed to leave minimal wakes, semi-submersibles are nearly impossible for surface craft to detect visually or by radar outside a range of about 10,000 feet (3,000 meters.)
That accounts for their relatively high success rate.
They are propelled by 250 to 350 horsepower diesel engines and take about a week averaging 7 knots (8 mph) to reach Mexico's shores, Colombian and U.S. investigators said.
Fuel tanks carry about 3,000 gallons of diesel, so no refueling is needed on the 2,000-mile journey from Colombia north.
With cocaine in Mexico fetching $6,500 per kilo -- about triple the Colombian price, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration -- an average 7-metric-ton load yields $30 million."
