Submarine-Like Vessel Loaded With Cocaine Is Seized by U.S.
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The U.S. Coast Guard seized a submarine-like boat loaded with $352 million of cocaine off the coast of Guatemala and arrested four suspected smugglers.
The operation on August 19 yielded 11 bales of cocaine weighing 1,210 pounds, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection service said in a statement posted on its Web site. A P–3 Orion maritime aircraft patrolling the Eastern Pacific spotted the vessel and guided a U.S. Navy ship to the scene, the Border Patrol said. As authorities moved in, the suspects scuttled the semi-submersible vessel and most of the cocaine.
“This low-profile semi-submersible craft was very difficult to detect,” Coast Guard Rear Admiral Craig Bone, tactical commander of American counter-drug operations in the Eastern Pacific, said in a statement.
