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Cocaine submarines

T

tigisfat

Guest
hey N2056,

check this out. Apparently they are having qualified people build these, and they can haul 250million worth of cocaine in one shipment FAST. They are supposedly extremely hard to detect because...they are submarines. The fiberglass hulls make it even harder.



[YOUTUBE]snOEj5T81Tk[/YOUTUBE]
 
These things are pretty cool. In 2008 before I transferred to shore duty we were in a group of ships that caught the first one ever taken without being scuttled. Can't go into to many details on how they are caught, but since these submarines have come onto the scene it has made it a lot easier since they do not fly flags, and we do not have to go through the beaurocratic crap to get permission from the flag country to search them.. On that note though as I mentioned above these people usually install systems on them that scuttle the sub by quickly flooding it so then we are stuck with a bunch of "rescued" foreign sailors that we must return to their home country due to lack of evidence and then they show up back on the high seas again doing the same crap.... I give them credit as they are very smart, and know how to work the system. I will have to put up some photos of some of the ships we have had to stop with the helicopter. No pics of the submersible though as we put that under heavy guard and people were not allowed to take photos. They even turned off our communications (private ones). They are not very hard to detect though. They have diesel engines which make them very easy to pick up on Sonar, not to mention the exhaust creates one hell of an infra-red signature even in the water. The submersibles are basically just enclosed boats that merely sit a few feet below the water. They are not true submarines (at least the ones we were chasing were not). They were slightly ballasted to keep them under water, but even without the ballast they would not fully surface. They would come up just enough to where the hatch would be above the water. The hardest part is getting them to stop more so than finding them cause they always head for the nearest national water (cannot be pursued w/o governing countries permisison). It is cool that Discovery did a show on them though. I have to check that out some time.
 
Here's a 30 min documentary on them, woth watching imo:

<script src="http://www.vbs.tv/vbs_player.js?width=480&height=270&ec=FpOGhpOo6d9MrYcXqRCuTAXznWitKDQ1&st=Motherboard&pl=http://www.vbs.tv/watch/motherboard/colombian-narcosubs" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Figured I would put up some pictures from cruise, decided not to put up pictures of the enemy vessels as that probably would be going to far, none the less though.

Picture061.jpg

Our aircraft sitting out on deck at the ready for short notice launch. Is hooked up to external power and all that so all the electric systems are running, just have to start the engines and go.

Picture036.jpg

Shot of the aircraft in a hover. That stop sign was a pain in my rear to paint. We were hoping it would get people to stop since usually you cant get radio comms with them (a bullet across the bow usually suffices).

Picture063.jpg

Another ship that was trolling around with us. Usually we don't travel together, but I think we were going for supplies or something. Can't remember as it was 5 years ago, but still makes for a cool picture.

Picture055.jpg

Once they seen the helicopter chasing them. Usually they will start throwing everything overboard in an effort to get rid of the evidence... Unfortunately they pack it so tightly that it still floats. We can spend days in efforts to find it all, and pick it up out of the ocean. It is just crazy how much of this stuff you can fit in a tiny boat. This was back in 05' before I ever even heard of these submersibles. Those started creeping up a few years later (I wound up going to the Gulf, and other operations). In 2008 when I went back out there the submersibles have become more common place.

Picture141.jpg

Standing watch over the goods for as far as the eye can see till it can be turned over to US Law Enforcement so it can be used in the prosecution of the "suspects." I use that term of course because you are innocent until proven guilty.. but of course that isn't very hard seeing as you are the only ones floating in the ocean and it is all caught/recorded on video tape. :ernae:
 
Roadburner,....thanks for posting the photos. Now,....if only the dumb Gringos stopped pushing this stuff up their noses......
 
Or. . . we made recreational use of drugs legal, regulated it, taxed it and cut the Cartel's right out of their business. . .
 
Going back more than 10 years ago the DEA (IIRC) 'captured' a fully submersible craft that had been constructed in sections well away from (so the crims thought!) prying eyes.
Once the sections had been transported to the Colombian waterfront warehouse that was the assembly 'shed' the forces of Law and Order swooped and arrested a large number of drug cartel types.
No idea what the outcome was but the name stuck ....... "The Bogata Boatbuilding and Pharmaceutical Supply Company".
:cool:
 
Why 'above' in the stop sign? Are you letting anyone who's disoriented on the water know where the helicopter is in relation to them?

Why do their stop signs say alto in the first place?
 
The helicopter was hovering off the back of the ship when I took the picture... the drug runners always know the helicopter is there: 1) You can hear an H-60, they are fairly loud 2) Until they fire upon us all we can do is basically swoop their boat, and blast it with water from the rotor down wash... The only people that are allowed to do anything to them is the Coast Guard, because if we as the Navy do anything it is considered an act of war. The Coast Guard being part of the Department of Transportation is considered law enforecement.. Now if they fire at the helicopter first, then they get the .50 cal and whatever other weapons we happen to have loaded at the time. Needless to say they all know these rules, and do not fire at the helicopter and instead head for the nearest national waters in order to attempt to get away. We painted the stop sign on the bottom of the search radar radome in an attempt to make it very clear to them they needed to stop. Needless to say they still hauled butt away, lol.
 
Yeah, that is another problem with Spanish. Is that the same word means different things in different dialects... We had a Guatemallan on our detachment that cruise and he was the one that told us Alto meant Stop in Spanish. Then when we were in Mexico on a port visit and one of our liberty buddies ATM card got sucked into the machine, and we asked him to translate what it said that was when we found out all Spanish isn't the same, lol. Cause he just kind of stumbled across words, and when we asked he told us that it was a different dialect of Spanish. Ah well. Win some you lose some.
 
Definetly confusing for non-native Spanish speakers - depending on which Spanish you learned !! (Mexican, Castillian, Catalan, Argentine, etc.)

In proper Mexican Spanish, the verb to "stop" is Parar. To command someone to stop is; "parate'!
but, in many parts of Mexico, they also use the coloquial "alto" in speech and on their traffic stop signs.

English presents many of the same problems for non-native English speakers.

A few rounds across the bow seems to be a universal language, though. . . :running:
 
"Pare" (from the verb parar) also means "Stop" en Espanol. In some places in Latin America, you'll often see stop signs with Alto and Pare only blocks from each other. Alto literally means "Halt" as a command, but as an adjective, as noted above, means high, tall or even a high note in music. To confuse it even further, a bus stop or taxi stop/stand is a "parada," which also means stop.

Either way, Alto is a correct way to say Stop, particularly for a vehicle or boat. When speaking to a person, you would use the reflexive form of parar: !Parese!
 
wombat666 said:
Going back more than 10 years ago the DEA (IIRC) 'captured' a fully submersible craft that had been constructed in sections well away from (so the crims thought!) prying eyes.
Once the sections had been transported to the Colombian waterfront warehouse that was the assembly 'shed' the forces of Law and Order swooped and arrested a large number of drug cartel types.
No idea what the outcome was but the name stuck ....... "The Bogata Boatbuilding and Pharmaceutical Supply Company".
:cool:
Click to expand...

There's a few interesting stories regarding submersibles. Myself and a couple of other SOH members here haved worked in Colombia and Panama. At one time, Maritime Narco Activity was freely rampant and pretty much in plain sight in the major port areas. Within the last 10 years or so, the pressure on these operations has forced them to remote locations many of which have little to no Government presence. The largest amount of Maritime Narco Surface & Sub Activity emanates from the West coast of Colombia, North West Ecuador, and both sides of Panama. We're talking seen suspicious Maritime activity number into the high hundreds to low thousands per month. It's hard to estimate the exact ratio of how many slip past versus how many get caught but thinking of how many Naval & Coast Guard assets we have performing such duties and how many busts we get, do the rough math. There are efforts to thwart the land supply lines of such operations and boat building which are showing progress better than before. Of course, there are enforcement actions happening now at every level in the chain that have never before been done.

Hey Roadburner, thanks for the pics and Salute!
 
Jagdflieger said:
"Pare" (from the verb parar) also means "Stop" en Espanol. In some places in Latin America, you'll often see stop signs with Alto and Pare only blocks from each other.

Either way, Alto is a correct way to say Stop, particularly for a vehicle or boat. When speaking to a person, you would use the reflexive form of parar: Para se.
Click to expand...

Yes, "Pare" is the common word for stop, "Alto" directly translated means 'HALT" which is a more forceful pronunciation/meaning of Stop.
 
Willy said:
Alto is Spanish for stop.
Click to expand...

I don't speak much Spanish, I assumed the Spanish was going to be close to the Latin definition, like most languages.

That's interesting to hear that 'Alto' means different things in different dialicts. Surely it started as above, as in 'mors ab alto', but how it got to 'stop' I don't know.
 
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