US Nabs Sub Carrying $200M of Cocaine [Video]
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
Saturday, March 26, 2016
A mini-submarine carrying $200 million worth of cocaine was intercepted by authorities in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
The Customs and Border Protection air crew from Corpus Christi was involved in the arrest of four people aboard a mini-submarine headed for the U.S. that authorities say was carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine worth nearly $200 million.
The seizure occurred March 3 in the Pacific Ocean off the Central American coast. Customs officials had spotted the vessel from a plane. A video of theinterdiction is available
here.
“It was painted blue to make it difficult for our guys to track it from the sky, but we have a lot of training doing this,” said Customs spokeswoman Yolanda Choates.
The drug vessel, described by officials this week as self-propelled and semi-submersible, became unstable and sank — as did the cocaine.
The US coast guard has released a video of a raid on the semi-submersible vessel.
This isn’t the first time officials have lost drugs they intercepted. In August last year, the Coast Guard lost 4,000 pounds of cocaine after making a huge bust off the California coast.