Cocaine-Laden Narco-Subs Set Sail for Mexico Every Week
Stupid-ass economy got you down? It could be worse. You could be making a measly $6,000 to spend fourteen days inside a godforsaken Colombian drug submarine with no bathroom, sleeping on gas tanks and motoring 3,500 miles north to Mexico. Oh yeah, and you might die.
Vice Magazine’s video department VBS.TV has a humbling, new, five-part web series on Narco-Subs featuring jaw-dropping footage of drug-laden speed boats, subs and former traffickers. Vice’s crew headed to the Malaga Naval Base in Colombia where the Pacific Coast Guard has interdicted or captured 36 narco-subs since 1993. They’re all substandard, non-commercial death traps that make you pity any soul desperate enough to climb into the wood and fiberglass heap.
According to the series—the Medellin cartel first adapted their old, high-speed cigarette boat designs by adding depth, a roof and exhaust pipes. Now, the subs are manufactured four at a time in 45 days in godforsaken Colombian jungle sub factories by some of the poorest people on Earth. The subs are then taken out to sea where they are loaded down with cocaine and sent on their way to Mexico. The drugs are offloaded and sent into the States.
