All articles tagged with #narco submarines
The falling price of cocaine has led drug traffickers to reuse narco-submarines instead of sinking them, as market saturation reduces profitability. Spanish police have observed increased activity of these semi-submersibles, along with a rise in synthetic drug laboratories across Europe, indicating evolving trafficking strategies amid changing market conditions.
Colombian drug lord Oscar Adriano Quintero Rengifo, also known as "the Prince of Semi-Submersibles," has been sentenced to over 20 years in prison for operating a fleet of narco-submarines that smuggled thousands of kilos of cocaine into the United States from South America. Quintero Rengifo was part of a transnational criminal organization that primarily sent self-propelled semi-submersible vessels to Guatemala, where the cocaine was then smuggled over the Guatemala and Mexican borders, and then into the U.S. The U.S. Coast Guard interdicted at least four vessels, including two semi-submersibles, directly linked to the defendant’s organization, and involving more than 13,000 kilograms of cocaine.