MEXICO CITY: The US Coast Guard showed off a 20 ton haul of cocaine confiscated from sea traffickers on Thursday – setting a record for the agency with $5.6billion of the drug intercepted over 12 months.
They also demonstrated the increasingly daring and sophisticated levels they are using by revealing they apprehended drug smugglers using a submarine to try and get their illegal load into the United States.
The incredible vessel which they described as a ‘self-propelled semisubmersible’ or SPSS was intercepted on September 6 in the Pacific Ocean by the Coast Guard ship, Waesche – which is based in Alameda.
The Coast Guard brought in five suspects and 5,600 pounds of cocaine, or two tons which had a street value of $73 million.
This is the sixth SPSS vessel authorities have encountered this year. The vessels are constructed with a mostly submerged hull, while the crew operates with a cockpit and exhaust pipe just above the water line.
