By IANS/EFE,
Bogota : Colombian police seized a drug-smuggling submarine equipped with GPS navigation, external cameras and satellite telephones, authorities said Monday.
The submarine has capacity to carry four tonnes of cocaine and may have cost as much as $2 million to build, the deputy director of the National Police narcotics squad, Col. Carlos Enrique Rodriguez, said in Bogota.
He told reporters the vessel was “equipped with the latest technology”, including radar, GPS navigation, external cameras, a gyroscope and data ports for computers and satellite phones.
Made of steel and fiberglass, the submarine is 40 feet long, 11 feet wide and 16.5 feet high, with room for a crew of five, Rodriguez said.
The vessel was built to travel up to 10 days without refueling and to cruise at a depth of 5 meters, “which makes its detection more difficult”, the colonel said.
“Intelligence work” enabled police to locate the submarine in a rural area of the western province of Choco, bordering Panama, he said.