Posted on 04/07/2009 4:47:07 AM PDT by kellynla
Bogota (AP) - It's a game played out regularly on the high seas off Colombia's Pacific coast: A U.S. Navy helicopter spots a vessel the size of a humpback whale gliding just beneath the water's surface.
A Coast Guard ship dispatches an armed team to board the small, submarine-like craft in search of cocaine. Crew members wave and jump into the sea to be rescued, but not before they open flood valves and send the fiberglass hulk and its cargo into the deep.
Colombia has yet to make a single arrest in such scuttlings because the evidence sinks with the so-called semi-submersible.
A new U.S. law and proposed legislation in Colombia aim to thwart what has become South American traffickers' newest preferred means of getting multi-ton loads to Mexico and Central America.
Twelve people have been arrested under the Drug Trafficking Vessel Interdiction Act of 2008 since it went into effect in October. It outlaws such unregistered craft plying international waters "with the intent to evade detection." Crew members are subject to up to 15 years in prison.
"It's very likely a game-changer," said Jay Bergman, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's regional director, based in Colombia. "You don't get a get-out-of-jail free card anymore."
The law faces legal challenges, though. The defendants have filed pretrial motions saying it violates due process and is an unconstitutional application of the so-called High Seas clause, which allows U.S. prosecution of felonies at sea.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
I would assume they just wanted to go swimming and leave them there
but not before they open flood valves and send the fiberglass hulk and its cargo into the deep
Why not follow them till they are in shallow water then board them before they hit shore.
because that makes too much sense...
Why not follow them till they are in shallow water then board them before they hit shore.Because most government bureaucrats are complete idiots?
Lemme see if I got this right.
Drug runners, who don’t obey laws to begin with are going obey THIS law?
I like depth charges. Drop some depth charges around these things.
“Why not follow them till they are in shallow water then board them before they hit shore.”
Because the next shallow water is California or Florida, several weeks away. They are programmed to go from one GPS waypoint to the next.
That would do it. And no rescue.
Either way a couple of metric tons of cocaine don’t make it to kid’s knapsacks.
This law makes it illegal to be caught on a semi-submersible that is designed to evade detection without it being necessary to recover the craft for evidence. So the people who are plucked out of the water can be convicted, even though all the evidence lies at the bottom of the ocean.
Right now, these guys are plucked out of the ocean, and there is nothing to charge them with.
Because if they do touch shore by chance, then they're eligible for free college tuition! Vanna, tell them what they've won...
So does the profit.
Just leave them in the water.
Problem solved.
Mark
“I would assume they just wanted to go swimming and leave them there.”
Seems like a pretty cost-effective solution to me. Perhaps we should simply announce that rescuing commercial submersible crews is the responsibility of their employer?
Stop picking them up.
Not only leave them there in the water but give them a nice frozen mesh bag full of pig’s blood... It should take but a little while for things to get very interesting...
I recall something in Popular Mechanics long past; the article spoke of personal submarines that rich adrenaline junkies could build themselves and take on vacations to the reefs. Larger versions could do reef and diving tours.
I’d be curious as to what one of the cocaine-minisubs looks like. Have they adapted off-the-shelf designs already out there? Or have they come up with something on their own?
And, who are they sharing the minisub designs with? Groups with names like MS-13, Shining Path, or AQ?
Uh, no sir, I don’t see anyone in the water.
the real issue is the enviromental impact of all that cocaine in the water. I would think that they could be charrged with serious EPA violations.
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