-Published: Monday, December 30, 2019-




By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Drug smugglers again are using low-profile  craft to move their illegal substances north, a Costa Rican official reports.

That was made clear when the National Coast Guard Service commandeered a stealthy craft with a crew of three early Christmas Day about 100 kilometers west of Punta Burica in the Pacific Ocean.

The low-riding boat is called a semi submersible because very little of the craft is above the water line. These custom-made, ocean-going, self-propelled semi-submersible vessels usually are built by drug traffickers to smuggle their products.

Each of the three crew members have cocaine-related criminal records in either the United States or Guatemala, said the Ministry of Security here.  They were identified by officials with the last names of Montaño, García and Alegría.

Although no drugs were found in the vessel, the coast guard towed it ashore and began removing fuel to avoid leakage that could damage ocean life.

In the case of Alegría, the ministry reported that he was stopped July 25, 2001, by the U.S. Coast Guard sailing aboard a speedboat with 1.5 tons of cocaine on board.

In the case of two other men: Montaño and García, on Sept. 13, 2008, they were intercepted by Guatemalan authorities 350 nautical miles from Puerto Quetzal in the Pacific coast of that country for transporting seven tons of cocaine on board, said the Ministry of Security in its statement.

Despite the antecedents of the men in other countries, none of them has a criminal record or open legal cases in Costa Rica. For that reason, the Quepos Prosecutor's Office ordered the men be detained in the cells of the General Directorate of Migration.

The case began with an international alert received by the National Coast Guard about a submarine sailing in the waters of the South Pacific coast near Punta Burica.

A National Coast Guard crew that patrols the area detained the men onboard the craft.

Although the police failed to find any type of illegal substance, "it was found onboard a large amount of Colombian money," said the police in its report.

According to the police, 1,274,000 Colombian pesos were found within the semi-submarine. This equates to approximately $388.

The semi-submarine was towed to the Coast Guard Station of Quepos at 8 a.m. Thursday. The ship being held in custody by the Public Ministry and the Drug Control Police.

In addition, police officers from the Coast Guard Station of Quepos seized the 2,500 liters of diesel fuel in the ship.

According to Martín Arias, general director of the National Coast Guard Service, an inspection of the boat is very thorough, because, in addition to ruling out the presence of drug shipments, another of the purposes of this process is to completely extract any type of ship's fuel.

This is because of these boat crews usually could store fuel elsewhere, in addition to the tanks, which causes spills that can contaminate the seas or the ground where the boat is placed, said the ministry.

It was Arias who confirmed drug trafficking organizations are now returning the use of semi-submarines to transport cocaine to Central America and to Mexico. Eventually most of the drug goes to the United States.

Including this case, the police report that eight ships of this type have been seized in Pacific waters. Six were found dumped, and two were seized. The Colombian navy reports that it has captured and confiscated more than 101 such vessels since 1997.

Better sonar detection equipment by the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard resulted in a number of captures of semi-submersibles in recent years even though they are hard to locate with conventional radar and air patrols.

At one point, the U.S. Department of homeland security said that about a third of the Colombian cocaine entering the United States had spent some time as cargo on a semi-submersible.



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