"For US, a terror threat lurks in drug smuggling subs; Shift of cargo to arms and people is feared" by Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | August 17, 2008
KEY WEST, Fla. - Skimming just below the surface, they are extremely difficult to detect from surveillance aircraft or patrol boats. Their sleek design, up to 80 feet in length, can secretly carry several tons of cargo thousands of miles.
These "semi-submersibles," which exhibit some of the same characteristics as military submarines, mark a significant advancement in the ability of drug smugglers to slip past coastal defenses.
So far this year, the Coast Guard says it has encountered at least 27 such vessels headed toward the southern and western United States, more than in the previous six years combined, while far more are believed to have gone undetected, according to US military and law enforcement officials.
The growing number and increased sophistication of the vessels, officially designated "self-propelled semi-submersibles," has set off alarms at the highest levels of the US military and the federal Department of Homeland Security. Counterterrorism officials fear that what drug runners now use to deliver cocaine, terrorists could one day use to sneak personnel or massive weapons into the United States.
SOUTHCOM asserts that the Colombian drug cartels are almost certainly receiving highly advanced technical assistance to fabricate the vessels, but declined to discuss where they believe that help is coming from.
So WHICH U.S. AGENCY and CONTRACTORS are building them?
John Pike, a weapons and technology specialist at GlobalSecurity.org, an Alexandria, Va., think tank, believes the semi-submersibles' physical characteristics are characteristic of naval designs from Russia - a key destination for Colombian cocaine and where military submarine designers have been desperate for work since the Soviet Union dissolved, diminishing its armed forces.
Huh? Perfect timing for this piece. What CO-INKY-DINK, huh?
"During the Cold War the Russians had hundreds of submarines and their submarine-building has collapsed," Pike said. "There is already senior-level contact between Russian gangsters and Colombian gangsters. There are enough mobsters in Russia to make the approach for [the Colombian drug organizations].
Yeah, and the Russian mobsters -- in case you didn't know -- is a syndicate of Zionist Jews!
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