Big Drug Raid Surprise: A Submarine
Given recent events it's a good question why anyone would want Russian technicians to build a submarine for them, but then the Colombian drug cartels have never been picky.
That's why it was so strange this week for police raiding a warehouse in Facatativa to stumble upon a most unusual drug trafficking tool: A 100-foot-long, half-built submarine they say would have been able to ship up to 200 tons of cocaine below the ocean's surface.
As CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports, Colombian authorities displayed their find on Thursday, a day after they discovered it along with documents in Russian in this town a half-hour's drive outside Bogota. Police and journalists crawled through the snub-nosed submarine's three unattached reddish metal sections and gazed in wonder at its size and sophisticated design.
"It was between 30 and 40 percent completed and had its engine room ready," Colombian National Police director Gen. Ernesto Gilibert told reporters. "The technology is advanced and the workmanship of high quality."
Construction notes found at the site were written in Russian, but investigators say it was two Americans who signed for the warehouse...and it was their presence and attitude that caused neighbors to call police.
Colombian traffickers have used smaller, simpler "mini-subs" on at least two occasions in the past, Gilibert said. But even seasoned anti-drug officials said they were stunned by the vessel discovered here.
"In 32 years I've never seen anything like this," Leo Arreguin, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration director in Colombia, told reporters.
"This is huge," he said. "We're talking about being able to load up to 200 tons of cocaine in this submarine."
The submarine's discovery marks a new chapter in innovation for Colombia's ingenious drug cartels, which have previously used refitted commercial airliners and oceangoing freighters to ship cocaine to the United States and other parts of the world.
The simple brick warehouse, complete with closed-circuit television monitors, was empty at the time of the raid.
It was strewn with workbenches, power-tools and gas canisters used for welding. No-smoking signs hung on the walls. Tools left haphazardly on shelves in the submarine's midsection suggested that workers had made a hasty getaway.
Facatativa is in located roughly 7,500 feet above sea level in Colombia's eastern Andean region.
"We think they were going to send it to the coast by truck in these three sections," said National Police Sgt. Samuel Alvarez. "The computerized navigation system was probably being built elsewhere."
Colombia exports 90 percent of the world's cocaine and is a growing heroin supplier. Traffickers have become increasingly expert at getting the drugs past intense air, sea and land interdiction efforts.
The U.S. recently began a $1.3 billion effort to ssist Colombia's war on drugs. The aid package includes Blackhawk helicopters, U.S. military advisors and funds for crop eradication.
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