Experts from the Honduran Navy have raised a submarine from which they extracted 7.5 tons of cocaine in August, after its crew sank it in the depths of the Caribbean, official sources confirmed.
Experts from the Honduran Navy have raised a submarine from which they extracted 7.5 tons of cocaine in August, after its crew sank it in the depths of the Caribbean, official sources confirmed.
Armed Forces spokesperson Colonel Alcides Flores told AFP that “the submersible is now in Puerto Castilla (600 kilometers northeast of Tegucigalpa), thanks to the ingenuity of our divers, because there’s a lack of technology for an operation like this, the first of its kind that we’ve carried out.”
The commandant of the Navy, Rear Admiral Rigoberto Espinal, told reporters that everything was “being done slowly; more than anything, it’s a training operation that our combat divers are carrying out.”
The vessel was intercepted by U.S. and Honduran authorities on July 13, in Caribbean waters 25 km from the Honduran coast, that is, in international waters.
Upon realizing the presence of the authorities, the crew, three Colombians and one Honduran who sailed the vessel from Colombia and were supposedly headed to the United States, sank it by opening an interior valve so that it would fill with water.
On August 2, the authorities finished removing 7.5 tons of cocaine, a record amount for joint operations between the Honduran and U.S. authorities.