Drug Smuggling Submarine

[travelover]

I found this to be a pretty interesting article. I've gotta wonder who is involved in designing and building these subs as it is obviously more than an amateur effort.

The Associated Press: Ecuadoreans, DEA seize drug-smuggling submarine

WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration said Saturday it has helped seize a submarine capable of transporting tons of cocaine.
DEA officials said that the diesel electric-powered submarine was constructed in a remote jungle and captured near a tributary close to the Ecuador-Colombia border. Ecuadorean authorities seized the sub before it could make its maiden voyage.
The sophisticated camouflaged vessel has a conning tower, periscope and air-conditioning system. It measured about nine-feet-high from the deck plates to the ceiling and stretched nearly a 100 feet long. The DEA says it was built for trans-oceanic drug trafficking.

 

[ls99]

I'm sure the DEA is really interested in the design(er) and builders.

So are some third world nations needing a quick an' cheap [-]offensive weapon[/-] undersea transport

 

[samclem]

Seems they might have boarded it at sea, seized the dope, replaced the weight with sand ballast and put a beacon and camera on it, then see who eventually claimed it.

Or sand ballast plus 50 pounds of tritonal and a detonator wired to the hatch and let nature take its course. But I guess then the government would be responsible if a cruise ship hit it while underway.

 

[Nords]

I've gotta wonder who is involved in designing and building these subs as it is obviously more than an amateur effort.

We've been exporting the technology for quite a while. General Dynamics and Newport News have laid off thousands of designers, engineers, and craftsmen since the Cold War ended and the 1990s "peace dividend" began. European shipbuilders have also been selling plenty of hulls to Latin American countries, and I'm sure that the old hulls sold for "scrap metal" aren't quite making it to the junkyard.

There are also plenty of boatbuilders who've extended their craft to submersibles. The ultra-rich love them (like Paul Allen's yacht) and it's widely commercialized by businesses like Atlantis submarines. Every university near a body of water probably has a research submersible, and some of them are capable of pretty impressive depths.

 

[mickeyd]

DEA officials said that the diesel electric-powered submarine was constructed in a remote jungle and captured near a tributary close to the Ecuador-Colombia border. Ecuadorean authorities seized the sub before it could make its maiden voyage.

We need to recruit the guys that made that thing and have BP put them on that gusher in the gulf. They would fix it.

 

[Nords]

We need to recruit the guys that made that thing and have BP put them on that gusher in the gulf. They would fix it.

Mainly due to their experiences with substances sucked up through long straws?

When South Korea was building its submarine force in the late 1990s, the word went out that ROKN was hiring retired U.S. Navy submariners of "diesel boats forever" experience. Most submariners have fond memories of Westpac liberty and the pay was exceedingly generous for [-]letting ol' pharts tell their sea stories[/-] this type of work, so a large number of enthusiastic new international defense consultants were born.

It soon became clear that certain Koreans expected to be purchasing the specific details of many classified U.S. submarine designs, equipment, procedures, and tactics. They'd found them to be unavailable (or too expensive) to purchase from the U.S. government so they were just turning to a more entrepreneurial secondary market. Once that word bubbled up the grapevine it became an uncomfortable diplomatic incident, along with many stories of "Are you really that naive? What the heck did you think we were paying you so much money for?!?"