As long as cocaine is illegal, the cat-and-mouse game between drug runners from Colombia and the authorities will continue. Decades of busts and subsequent innovation have led to a regular sort of news story, where black market businessmen have created a new way to get drugs to their customers. Tunnels, planes and speedboats are officially old hat, as the Colombian authorities just stopped a drug shipment in a homemade submarine.
The Colombian Navy intercepted the vessel about 35 miles off their coast, finding three men and two tons of cocaine inside. The men were Ecuadorian, Colombian and Mexican nationals and the shipment was believed to be en route to Mexico. The leader of the Colombian Navy’s counter-narcotics force explained the bust to Reuters as authorities displayed the cocaine and submarine to the press.
"According to intelligence reports, this shipment was on its way to cartels in Mexico,” he said. “The value of the shipment would be approximately $60 million dollars in international markets."
Colombian cocaine producers who are locked out of the tried-and-true method of selling their wares to the CIA have come up with many ways to get their product to US and European markets. When these go awry, they tend to make international news, like the unfortunate case of the mule who ingested 246 bags of cocaine. Sometimes things go left closer to home, like when a cartel put a bounty on a police dog who busted two stashes of cocaine worth over $300 million. Even in the ever-shifting world of drug-running, going full White October in the hopes of evading authorities is a new one.
