The Genius Design of Narco Submarines

this is a narco submarine A stealth marine vehicle designed to transport drugs from South America to the US and sometimes even Europe over the last decade authorities have caught over 200 of these but there are many more out there today we will take a look at four different models ranging from simple all the way to transatlantic high-tech how do these submarines work how do they avoid detection and what does the Coast Guard do to catch [Music] them there are many ways to smuggle cocaine into the high-profit markets of the US and Europe each year authorities

seiz several hundred tons of cocaine before it reaches the streets and many more tons get past them in this game of cat and mouse cartel's constant come up with new ways to deliver their product at first Naros Subs were made for short trips but over time their production was professionalized a hidden industry began to flourish this is Oscar Moreno Ricardo Colombian authorities named him the king of semi submersibles here deep in the dense Colombian jungle hidden along a river he operates a clandestine Shipyard far beyond the reach of authorities in places like this one Ricardo

and his competitors built submarines they can travel thousands of miles across the ocean carrying tons of cocaine these Narco submarines are designed to remain hidden but there are rare moments when we get a glimpse into their world hi Sutton studies the craft of Ricardo and the others he has dedicated his career to uncovering their secrets he's a specialist in defense analysis and unconventional Naval Warfare I've been looking at Narco submarines for about 15 years and keeping a database of all the incidents of Narco submarines and analyzing their designs and the trends that are evolving in

that space now let's dive into our first sub this is a very typical Narco submarine they started to appear like this in the late 2000s and they're still being found today it's roughly 14 m in length and not a true submarine rather it's a so-called lowprofile vessel the top remains visible above the water line its color Blends in with the sea due to its low height radar systems have a hard time detecting it currently it is on route to Central America inside the cramped vessel five men sit in 10 silence every so often the low

hum of the diesel engine pulses through the hull as it pushes them forward at 16 kmph the sub is divided into three compartments this middle is the crew area it's sparse and uncomfortable bunks cremm tightly together a single hatch above for entry here at the rear the diesel engine Roars vibrating against the thin fiberglass walls it is located behind the crew compartment so they can access it to do repairs up front the cargo hold is tightly packed with backs of cocaine 7.7 tons to be precise the crew uses the weight of the drugs Fuel and

engine to keep the vessel low in the water the cargo on board will earn the cartel a hefty sum if the sub reaches its destination a Marine Patrol aircraft spots the Narco submarine and immediately alerts the US Coast Guard right now they are operating an international Waters two small boats and a helicopter raced to intercept the vessel once within range Coast Guard officers jump onto the ship and give the door a friendly knock they captured the five Smugglers along with the cocaine valued at well over $200 million if law enforcement had not acted so decisively

the Smugglers could have opened the scuttling valve a last resort mechanism that floods the this up and sends it plunging to the ocean floor along with all its evidence This Crew had a relatively short Journey others travel half across the [Music] world while Naros Subs are obviously used for organized crime their engineering and the Ingenuity behind their design are undeniably remarkable if you ever wanted to build your own skills in these areas on the right side of the law of course brilliant is a great place to start their interactive lessons make it easy to learn

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subscription start developing new skills [Music] today a different part of the Amazon a NCO vessel departs near manau in Brazil and is making its way to makaa the Amazon's mouth this semi up was over 20 M long and nicknamed CH inside CH said three men August te Alvarez a former Spanish boxer and captain of The Vessel and two Ecuadorian men they are about to cross the Atlantic traveling at around 19 kmph they will cover roughly 6 and 1 12,000 km from the Brazilian Rainforest all the way to Europe with no GPS and only a compass

to guide their way it will take them about 2 weeks to reach their destination if all goes according to plan this knos up is very similar to our first one but it is more modern and larger it also has three compartments you've got the engine in the back the crew in the middle and the cargo Bank nearly half the sub size is reserved for fuel three massive tanks holding 20,000 L ensuring The Vessel can make the long journey the men have no proper beds and use plastic bags as toilets for food they have the choice

between energy bars rice or cans of sardines there's only one proper seat so two men must lie down at all times the men endured three storms and almost hit a larger ship on the way but finally managed to cross the Atlantic but well luck is not on their side after 27 days the sub runs out of fuel the journey took twice as long as planned because of the conditions at Sea they can't deliver the drugs to another vessel two attempts to meet with cartel boats fail as a last resort Alvarez contacts old friend from his

hometown vgo and hopes to get help from them to unload the cocaine but this also fails so they travel near the coast of Galicia and sink The Vessel afterwards the crew wants to flee but law enforcement has already spotted them the eu's maritime analysis and operation Center has notified Spain that a suspicious vessel is heading for their Coast they watched them using night vision goggles and observed their arrival in Galicia officials arrested two Ecuadorian men shortly after the sinking Alvarez can flee he hides nearby in an abandoned house for 5 days and then finally gets

arrested Spanish police refloat and confiscate the sunken submarine they find three tons of cocaine worth around $100 million every time one of these gets caught a cartel loses a lot of money reason enough to innovate at first glance this just looks like a real submarine it has the typical cylindrical shape and is around 24 M long this build can almost fully submerge only a snorkel protrudes from its top allowing the vessel to breathe drawing in air to cool its diesel engine and provide fresh oxygen for the crew it also gives the vessel its name the

snorkel sub unlike most real submarines or or most Naval sub Marines is not built out of steel or metal it's built out of fiberglass a diesel engine Powers this up while an onboard generator provides electricity for various systems including a camera mounted at top the snorkel so they always have an idea of what's around them when they're underwater Bast tanks allow it to take in water and dive deeper when danger is spotted the interior feels crammed yet sophisticated there's a basic toilet and a sink small luxuries that make long Journeys more bearable for the crew

the snorkel sub can haul up to 8 tons of cocaine carrying its eled cargo thousands of kilometers from Colombia to destinations like Mexico or Beyond so far not a single one of these has ever been caught at sea but we know they keep building them because the ones that we have got like this have always been captured on land so we can infer from that that they must be very successful and that makes sense Patrol aircraft will have a much harder time spotting this up through its camera system it can maneuver around and evade Coast

Guard ships with much greater finesse the fact that such a complex machine gets built in a jungle in the middle of nowhere is remarkable these shipyards are far from traditional Supply chains or modern facilities Narco submarines are designed and the construction is overseen by Master Builders these are Artisans very technically proficient they're impressive designs in the sense that while they might look very shoddy and Mill they really are the perfect example of the minimum viable product these Subs need to be good enough to reliably transport extremely expensive cargo thousands of miles but at the same

time they have to be built with very basic materials not many people are capable of doing that these Master Builders there's only so many of them and we can tell that because each designer if you like has signature they they have certain ways of solving problems that reveal themselves in the designs and one of these Builders far outshines the rest in November 2020 law enforcement stumbled upon something extraordinary in the Colombian jungle a fully submersible 12 M long Narco submarine there's no fuel storage and no diesel engine in the back instead the subh hous is

a whopping 10 tons of batteries powering two electric motors this is the peak of Nao sub Ingenuity construction costs roughly $1.5 million dive planes control the depth of the submarine its batteries have an estimated endurance of 12 hours traveling at 5 kmph this sub could reach a travel distance of about 60 km this sub can travel neither fast nor far but it doesn't have to this vessel is not designed to make long Journeys on its own do you see this little thing here that's a towering ring it can be attached to larger ships allowing the

Narco sub to be pulled long distances undetected when the Smugglers reach their destination or Coast Guard appears they simply unhook and continue on their own this up is extremely hard to detect in fact it has never been found in action authorities have only discovered this one example in the Colombian jungle but there are most likely many more of them out in the waters we can infer that it's incredibly successful just like the other all Narco submarines are statistically successful most get through but these ones are even harder to find and has never never been seen

in the wild this Naros is proof that drug smugglers continue to design new sophistic ated vessels to move drugs into profitable markets the trend has been towards smaller payad they carry less drugs than they used to but there's more of them and so it's really about optimizing their supply lines and getting the the drugs to the market minimizing the risks when the sub completes its Mission it may end up here in a massive graveyard of Nako subm Marines on the ocean floor because almost all of them are only Built for a one-off trip in 2022

the reign of Oscar Moreno Ricardo the so-called king of Narco submarines came to an end after years of eluding authorities he was finally arrested in a joint operation by Colombian and American authorities his capture marks a significant victory for law enforcement but it is far from a decisive blow another worthy successor will most likely have already taken his place somewhere in the depths of the Colombian jungle a new genius is already working on the next generation of Narco submarines more advanced more sophisticated and designed to beat the latest tactics of law enforcement