The fifth semisubmersible drug smuggling vessel seized in the past year by Coast Guard crews in the Pacific yielded 12,800 lbs. of cocaine, but a top Coast Guard officer said an intense effort is only intercepting one-fifth of the seaborne drug flow from South and Central America.
“We estimate we intercept about 20% of the drugs in the maritime,” said Vice Adm. Charles Ray, commander of the Coast Guard Pacific Area. A hemispheric counter-smuggling effort with U.S. and foreign law enforcement and military agencies gathers intelligence on 80% to 90% of shipments, but there are not enough vessels and aircraft to catch more of them, Ray said.
On balance, investing in high seas interception brings a bigger payoff in the drug war, because maritime seizures bring in three times the volume of narcotics seized on land, Ray said at a March 29 press briefing at Alameda, Calif., home port of the 418’x54’x22’6” cutter Bertholf.
The first of the Legend-class National Security Cutters has been busy in the eastern Pacific, and on March 3 its crew picked up another of the drug vessels the Coast Guard calls self-propelled semisubmersibles. Typically about 40’ long and riding low in the water, with just a conning dome for the helmsman and a snorkel air intake and exhaust to run a diesel engine, semisubmersibles are part of a drug cartel strategy to elude patrols.
“They build these in the jungles of South America,” with steel, aluminum or wooden framing overlaid with fiberglass, Ray said. “There are only a few people who can build these, so it’s a limited resource,” he said.
Equipped with standard off-the-shelf Global Positioning System units for navigation, semisubmersible crews typically carry cocaine from South America and make landfall in southern Mexico, from where the drugs are moved north to the United States, said Lt. Donnie Brzuska, a Coast Guard spokesman.
“We’re seeing a resurgence of this technology and its use by the smugglers,” he said.
In the recent case, a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol fixed-wing surveillance aircraft detected a semisubmersible northwest of the Galapagos Islands. The Bertholf, on patrol since January, steamed 500 miles to the area and deployed a helicopter and two interceptor boats to make the grab.
“Our first concern is the safety of our crews and the safety of the people [doing the smuggling]," said Capt. Laura Collins, commander of the Bertholf, who spoke by satellite telephone. “Semisubmersibles are extremely unstable and we treat each one as a sinking vessel.”
The four-man crew was waiting on deck with hands raised in surrender as the boarding team approached, and they were removed from the boat without incident, although a loaded weapon was found in the boat’s steering station. After securing and stabilizing the craft, cocaine worth some $203 million was offloaded, and the boat scuttled as a hazard to navigation, Collins said.
“I’d call this a medium-large load,” Ray said of the seizure. Official estimates of how much cocaine gets through compared to how much is intercepted show the huge volumes and maritime capabilities of drug gangs. In the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2015 the Coast Guard captured more than 319,000 lbs in the Eastern Pacific, and since Oct. 1 the next annual tally is already past 201,000 lbs.
