Submarines: Narco Sub Production Moves to Europe
9th April 2021
In southern Spain (Malaga province, just east of the Straits of Gibraltar), a March 2021 police raid on a drug gang coastal warehouse found a ten-meter (31 foot) narco-sub (drug smuggling submersible vessel) under construction and nearly completed. The sub had a fiberglass and wood hull containing twin 200 HP engines. The sub could carry about two tons of drugs. This type of narco sub is used for offshore transfers of drugs from ocean-going fishing trawlers or cargo ships carrying cocaine from South America or hashish and heroin from Africa. Belgium and Spain are major centers of the European drug trade and together account for about ten percent of the drug seizures worldwide.
Building narco subs in Europe was suspected after the long-anticipated appearance of South American narco-subs in Europe finally happened in November 2019. This occurred off the Spanish coast when a trans-Atlantic narco-sub was having engine and ventilation problems made worse by rough seas. The three-man crew was discovered by police as they were abandoning the sinking narco-sub close to shore. Two of the crew, both from Ecuador, were arrested while the third man got away but was captured a few days later and found to be Spanish and the pilot of the sub.