A homemade submersible with the capacity to transport up to five tons of drugs was seized by the Colombian Navy near the port of Buenaventura (on the Pacific, in southwestern Colombia).

The seized submersible measures 7.5 meters long and 1.5 meters wide, and was found near Buenaventura. (Photo: Colombian National Navy)

A homemade submersible with the capacity to transport up to five tons of drugs was seized by the Colombian Navy near the port of Buenaventura (on the Pacific, in southwestern Colombia).

The submersible, 7.5 meters long and 1.5 meters wide, is the first of its kind found in Colombia this year, but a total of 76 have been found since the first one was seized in 1993, the Navy specified.

According to that institution, the submersible found near Buenaventura is an unmanned vessel that submerges in order to be towed by boats, making it difficult to detect while at sea.

Near the location where the submersible was found, Navy units also found a go-fast boat with the capacity to transport up to ten tons of drugs.

Drug traffickers use the Colombian Pacific coast especially for the manufacture of illegal vessels, due to its marshlands and areas with constant rain, low tides that enable the production and stockpiling of drugs, and high tides that facilitate the departure of the vessels.

Of the total vessels seized from drug-trafficking organizations since 1993, 59 were found in the Pacific, two of which were classified as fully submersible, because they had the specifications to travel long distances underwater.

The Colombian Navy indicated that in 2011, 33 percent of the 74 tons of cocaine seized were transported on speedboats, while 17 percent of the drugs were found on fully and partially submersible vessels.