The illegal ship, whose dimensions are 30 meters long and three meters wide, is the largest intercepted sailing with drugs since 1993, the year in which the Colombian Navy seized the first semi-submarine type device.
In 2023, the Pacific Naval Force has intercepted four semi-submarines sailing with drugs.
The operation carried out by the Colombian Navy in the Colombian Pacific against drug trafficking organizations and the effective deployment, led to the execution of a joint operation with the Colombian Air Force that had international support, in which a semi-submarine type LPV (low profile ship, for its acronym in English) was detected and intercepted, which was transporting more than three tons of drugs.
Once the radars of the Colombian Navy ships in the Pacific Ocean detected a suspicious ship sailing in the South Pacific area, monitoring began with international support and an aircraft of the Colombian Air Force, so that the Coast Guard units made the interception of the illegal ship.
In the midst of adverse weather conditions in the Pacific Ocean, the Colombian Sailors reported the interception of the semi-submarine, 30 meters long by three meters wide, manned by three Colombian nationals, who were brought to safety taking into account that the illegal ship had begun to sink due to an ingress of water in the area of the engines.
After an inspection, the military personnel recovered 102 sacks with the illegal merchandise and tried to refloat the semi-submarine through different naval maneuvers, without any success, which is why it was sunk so as not to hit the navigation in the area.
According to what was stated by the three crew members of the illegal ship, 63, 54 and 45, they were forced by a drug trafficking organization to embark and take the semi-submarine with the drugs to Central America.
The individuals, along with the illegal merchandise, were taken to the district of Tumaco – Nariño, where they were given to the authorities, who, upon conducting the Approved Preliminary Identification Test – PIPH, confirmed the positive result for 3058 kilograms of cocaine hydrochloride.
With this blow to drug trafficking organizations, the Colombian Navy prevented 103 million dollars from entering its finances and 7.6 million doses will not be distributed on the streets of the world.
THE FACTS
According to the historical events of interception and finding of semi-submarine devices, this LPV (low-profile ship) is the largest one found since 1993, sailing with drugs. In 2020, in the rural area of Buenaventura, a device of the same dimensions was found in an area of estuaries, whose construction had already been completed and was ready to be loaded with narcotics.
It should be recalled that the Colombian Navy found the first semi-submarine type device in 1993, on the Island of Providencia. Subsequently, in the years 1994 and 1995, it detected one case per year, in the Colombian Caribbean.
By 2007, the drug trafficking organizations turned all their efforts in order to consolidate this strategy in the transportation of psychoactive substances in rudimentary shipyards, in the estuaries adjacent to the navigable rivers on the Colombian Pacific Coast.
In 2009, with the support of the Colombian Navy, Law 1311 was approved, which criminalizes the use, construction, commercialization, possession and transportation of semi-submarines or submarines with penalties between 6 and 14 years.
Since 1993 to date, the Colombian Navy has intercepted 228 illegal semi-submarine and submarine-type ships.
Source: Press - Navy of Colombia
