On Wednesday, the Colombian navy announced its unprecedented seizure of an unmanned narco-submarine equipped with a Starlink antenna off its Caribbean coast. While the vessel was not carrying drugs, both the Colombian navy and Western security sources based in the region informed AFP that they believe it represented a trial run of an unmanned vessel by a cocaine trafficking cartel.
A naval spokesperson confirmed to AFP that “It was being tested and was empty.” When asked if it was operated by Starlink, the spokesperson affirmed that the vessel “had that technology” but added that the navy “was still studying how exactly it operated.”
The discovery, announced by Navy Commander Admiral Juan Ricardo Rozo at a press conference, marks one of the first reported finds of a drone narco-submarine in South American waters. This development comes as cartels intensify their use of difficult-to-detect submarines, typically with a crew aboard, to smuggle cocaine across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
For decades, manned semi-submersibles have been utilized to transport cocaine north from Colombia’s Pacific coast to Central America or Mexico. However, in recent years, these vessels have been observed venturing significantly further afield. As an example, in November of last year, five tonnes of Colombian cocaine were discovered on a semi-submersible that was intercepted en route to Australia.
