Buzz

The Colombian Navy on Wednesday announced its first taking of a “Narco Sub” Equipped with a Starlink antenna in its Caribbean coast.

The semi -reproet ship did not carry drugs, but the security sources of the Colombian Navy and Western security based in the region told the News that they believed it was a trial led by a cocaine traffic poster.

“He was testing and was empty,” confirmed a naval spokeswoman for the News.

Semi-peppered semi-peppers built in clandestine Jungle shipyards have been used for decades to Ferry cocaine North from Colombia, the largest cocaine producer in the world, to Central America or Mexico.

But in recent years, they have been sailing much further, crossing the oceans of the Atlantic and the Pacific.

The last finding, announced by Admiral Juan Ricardo Rozo at a press conference, is the first discovery reported in the South American waters of a drug submarine.

The Navy said it was owned by the Gulf clanThe largest drug trafficking group in Colombia and had the ability to transport 1.5 tons of cocaine.

The Gulf Clan is one of the various posters recently designated as foreign terrorist groups by the United States. The “main source of revenue of the group is from Cocaine trafficking, which it uses to finance its paramilitary activities,” according to the United States Department of State.

A video released by the Navy showed a small gray container with a satellite antenna in the arch.

This is not the first time that a Starlink antenna has been used at sea by alleged drug traffickers.

In November, the Indian police confiscated a giant consignment of methamphetamine worth $ 4.25 billion in a vessel directed remotely by Starlink near the remote Andaman and Nicobar islands.

It was the first known discovery of a Sub narco operated by Starlink.

“Cars” floating

Cocaine production, seizures and use of all the maximum record in 2023, said the UN drug agency last month.

In Colombia, production has reached record levels, fed by the growing global demand.

Rozo said that the use of autonomous submarines reflected the traffickers “migration to more sophisticated unnim down systems” that are difficult to detect in the sea, “difficult to track by radar and even allow criminal networks to operate with partial autonomy.”

Juana Cabeza, a researcher at the Institute of Development and Peace Studies of Colombia, told News that the powerful Mexican drug cartels, who operate in Colombia, “hired technology and engineers experts to develop a non -manned submarine” already in 2017.

He pointed out that drone ships made it more difficult for the authorities to identify drug traffickers behind shipments.

“Eliminating the crew eliminates the risk that the captured operators cooperate with the authorities,” said Henry Shuldiner, a researcher of the group of crime experts based in the United States, who co -authorized a report on the emergence of Narco Sub.

Shuldiner also highlighted the challenge of assembling teams to navigate the improvised subset described as floating “coffins.” The trip can be deadly: in 2023, a “Narco sub” with two bodies and almost three tons of cocaine on board were seized on the coast of Colombia.

According to the report, an almost record number of low profile ships in the Atlantic and the Pacific was intercepted in 2024, according to the report.

In November last year, five tons of Colombian cocaine were found in a semi-submersible On the way to Farway Australia.

Colombian law punishes the use, construction, marketing, possession and transport of semi-summeable with sanctions of up to 14 years in prison.

Although it was commonly seen off the coast of Colombia, Narco submarines have been intercepted worldwide in recent months.

Last week, the Mexican Navy seized 3.5 tons of cocaine hidden in a semi -subject container against the Pacific coast, while releasing Video of the “Narco Sub” being intercepted.

In March, the Portuguese police said the forces had confiscated almost 6.5 tons of cocaine of a semi-submersible container of the remote archipelago of Azores that was intended for the Iberian Peninsula. In January, a narco suspect broke into two pieces like The fishing boat was towing It is a port in the northwest of Spain.

• Colombia
• Cocaine