Coast Guard seizes $181 million in cocaine on sub

The cocaine, estimated to be worth approximately $180 million, was being smuggled in a semi-submersible low-tech submarine that travels with both its cockpit and exhaust pipe above water.

The 40-foot long homemade vessel was spotted July 18 by a U.S. Navy aircraft, which called the crew of the Coast Guard cutter Stratton to a spot 200 miles south of Mexico, the military organization said.

After removing 12,000 pounds of the narcotics aboard, the crew of Stratton attempted to tow the semi-submersible to shore as evidence.

“We’re trying to hang onto that boat and sustain it and it let it ride better in the water”, Petty Officer Michael Anderson told the Los Angeles Times. However, the submersible began taking on water and sank along with the 2 tons of cocaine.

The drug bust is the Coast Guard’s largest on record for a partially submerged vessel, officials said. Coast Guard crew members boarded the sub and arrested four suspected smugglers.

Twenty-five similar vessels have been interdicted in the Eastern Pacific Ocean since November 2006, the Coast Guard said.

Though it gave 4,000 pounds of coke a watery grave, the Stratton has seized more than 33,000 pounds of narcotics since May, says the Coast Guard. “Every interception of these semi-submersibles disrupts transnational organized crime networks and helps increase security and stability in the Western Hemisphere”.

Inside the dope U-boat, a Coastie boarding team seized 275 bales of cocaine with a street value of $181 million. These vessels are extremely hard to detect and interdict because of their low-profile and ability to scuttle.

The Coast Guard based in Alameda has stopped a total of 15 different drug smuggling attempts since April, NBC reported.