NP more on South Americans in Submarines

[Doug Millison]

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-colombi.html

September 7, 2000

Colombia Seizes Drug - Running Submarine in Warehouse

By REUTERS

Filed at 12:05 p.m. ET

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A Russian-designed submarine, being built to 
smuggle drugs out of Colombia, was confiscated on Thursday on the 
outskirts of Bogota, authorities said.

A statement from the National Police said the 100-foot (30- meter) 
sub was seized in a raid on a warehouse in a working-class 
neighborhood 18 miles (30 km) west of the capital.

Police chief Gen. Luis Ernesto Gilibert said Russian-language 
documents found alongside the partially completed vessel led 
authorities to conclude that "the Russian Mafia or Russian 
technicians'' were involved in its construction.

Once work on the sub had been completed, Gilibert said it would have 
been broken up and smuggled overland before being riveted back 
together and launched off Colombia's Pacific or Caribbean coast.

He did not speculate on why work on the ship had been started in the 
landlocked Colombian capital, which is perched in the Andes mountains 
8,530 feet (2,600 meters) above sea level.

But Gilibert, who spoke to reporters while inspecting the sub in the suburb of
Facacativa, estimated that it would have had the capacity to carry at 
least 150 metric tons of cocaine or heroin on any given voyage out of 
Colombia.

No arrests were made in connection with the submarine, which was 
reminiscent of a case in 1994 when two mini-subs used by Colombian 
drug traffickers were seized off the Caribbean port of Santa Marta.

Colombia is estimated to supply about 80 percent of the world's 
cocaine and much of the heroin sold on U.S. streets.