Crack Down on Colombia's Narco-Subs

This is a fun one from the Christian Science Monitor:

Colombian drug traffickers' latest transport vehicle of choice, known as narcosubs or semisubmersibles, are made to avoid detection. Once loaded with anywhere from four to 10 tons of cocaine, only about one foot of the homemade vessels rises above water as they make the 15-day, 1,500-mile journey from Colombia's southern Pacific coast to the shores of Mexico.

Forty-two semisubs have been seized since 1993 – with three nabbed in the first week of June alone. But laws have not yet caught up with the drug traffickers.

It is still legal in Colombia to build, transport, or possess unregistered semisubmersible vessels. So, if no drugs are found in a seizure on land or at sea, there is no crime. But a bill that gives authorities the tools to prosecute anyone linked to the subs is soon to become law. Prison sentences for those convicted range from six to 14 years.

The bill follows a new law passed last fall in the United States that outlaws unregistered subs in international waters, regardless of whether they can be shown to have been carrying drugs. Typically, crews that are detected by naval authorities open an emergency valve built into the subs to scuttle the vessels and their cargo. With the evidence of cocaine at the bottom of the sea, officials had been obliged by international law to treat the crew as castaways.
...
Once the hatch is open, the nauseating smell of diesel fuel wafts from the cramped cabin where usually four men make the two-week journey: a captain, a machinist, a navigator, and a cargo representative who makes sure the cocaine reaches the buyer on the other end.

For the duration of the journey they eat canned sausages and tuna and drink Gatorade or Red Bull energy drinks. To relieve themselves, they must climb out of the cabin and tie themselves to the sub so they don't fall into the sea.

For big-time traffickers, the subs are the most efficient way to get their product to market. A single sub that slips through the dragnets can carry as much as 10 tons of cocaine. At a price of about $25,000 per kilo, the subs may carry as much as $250 million worth of merchandise.

The use of subs started being explored by some of Colombia's top drug runners in the mid-1990s, says Montoya. The so-called "go-fast" boats that tried to outrun Coast Guard patrols were being caught. The go-fasts had replaced cocaine-laden planes when they became too easy to detect.

This just illustrates the wack-a-mole aspect of the farcical "War on Drugs." The laws of the market are pretty irresistible, when demand has money, supply will find a way.

Nat Wilson Turner June 24, 2009 - 3:17pm

Nat Wilson Turner's diary | printer friendly version |

( categories: Latin America )

ANALYSIS-Peru's Garcia to struggle for rest of term

Reuters

Peru's weakened President Alan Garcia is under heavy pressure to make more concessions to opposition groups as socialunrest and a slower economy undermine his push to attract foreign investors.

Garcia's government mishandled protests by indigenous groups that turned deadly this month when it sent police to break up blockades of roads in the Amazon rain forest, killing at least 34 people.

It is the worst crisis of Garcia's presidency and his approval rating has plummeted 9 percentage points to 21 percent since the clashes, according to pollster Ipsos Apoyo.

Ninety percent of Peruvians say Garcia should have tried to win the tribes' support before passing controversial laws to open up ancestral lands to mining and petroleum companies. Congress ended up repealing the laws last week.

Garcia has lost support in the legislature, where his party lacks a majority, and in the countryside, where restive groups representing the poor are demanding he spend more on social programs and build roads, schools and hospitals.

"The next two years will be difficult because the economic crisis is now hitting us, and because the country is fractured," said Gino Costa, interior minister under former President Alejandro Toledo. "I think what Alan Garcia needs is a change of attitude ... more conciliatory and less arrogant."

Nat Wilson Turner June 24, 2009 - 3:22pm

Mexico reports three new A/H1N1 flu deaths, disease outbreak in

Xinhua

Mexico's Health Ministry yesterday reported three new deaths from A/H1N1 flu, which first broke out in the country in mid-April, and warned of a particularly notable increase of infections in the southeastern state of Yucatan, where nearly 600 new cases have been detected this month.

Yucatan is now Mexico's second most infected state, with 683 cases in total, up from just 97 at the start of the month, according to a statement from the ministry.

"Yucatan is taking special measures in the area where the flu has been detected," a ministry official told Xinhua. The measures include closing schools where children had tested positive for the disease. Officials at the state's health department were not immediately available for comment.

Nat Wilson Turner June 24, 2009 - 3:23pm

Mexico and Brazil: Latin America Bond and Currency Preview

Bloomberg

The following events and economic reports may influence trading in Latin American local bonds and currencies today. Bond yields and exchange rates are from the previous session.

Mexico: Consumer prices likely rose 0.16 percent during the first half of June, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 12 economists. The government reports the data at 10 a.m. New York time.

The peso slid 0.3 percent to 13.3521 per dollar.

The yield on the country’s 10 percent bond due December 2024 rose five basis points, or 0.05 percentage point, to 8.62 percent, according to Banco Santander SA.

Nat Wilson Turner June 24, 2009 - 3:28pm

Mexico warns recession could hurt climate goals

Reuters
Mexican President Felipe Calderon warned governments on Monday against letting economic crisis derail steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions, saying failure to reach a deal would cost all nations dearly.

Speaking at a meeting of representatives of the world's biggest economies on how to tackle climate change, Calderon said the world was running out of time to take serious action to address the problem of global warming.

"The finger-pointing has gone on for more than a decade without humanity taking a single step forward in the fight against climate change," Calderon said at the meeting, in the town of Jiutepec in a picturesque valley near Mexico City.

He said the global recession risked making negotiations over emission-cutting goals even more complicated.

"If it is hard in boom times to agree to steps that have an economic cost, it will be even harder during a recession."

Nat Wilson Turner June 24, 2009 - 3:29pm

Next Generation of Subs

Will be nuclear powered and haul 50,000 tons of Cocaine.

Wait, the subs could burn cocaine. That would eliminate the diesel smell...

Synoia June 24, 2009 - 5:56pm

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Crack Down on Colombia's Narco-Subs

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