This a good article about hacking a mostly submerged boats in difficult jungle conditions: 'When I asked Nimmich if he was impressed by their craftsmanship, he arched a brow and said: “You ever try to build something in your backyard? They’re building these in the jungles.'

While I'm not pro-drug-trade, some of the legal tactics seem problematic: 'The Drug Trafficking Vessel Interdiction Assistance Act, which became law in October, now allows the United States to prosecute someone for merely being on board a semisub. ... Such a law does not exist in Colombia. But Colombia’s defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, told me that one is in the works and could be enacted as early as June. He said the country is also looking to ban certain plastics used in semisub production.'

Illegal to be on board a boat because of its design? Banning plastics because the might be used for submarine manufacture? This seems clumsy and parallel to laws regarding technology issues such as deCSS and file sharing.

Here is the actual law regarding semisubs: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.3351:

The text is a bit more specific and reasonable, I think. "Whoever knowingly or intentionally operates by any means or embarks in any submersible or semi-submersible vessel that is without nationality and that is navigating or has navigated into, through, or from waters beyond the outer limit of the territorial sea of a single country or a lateral limit of that country's territorial sea with an adjacent country, with the intent to evade detection, shall be punished as prescribed in subsection (h)."

I can think of very few legitimate activities that would fall under that bill.

Thanks for finding that! Yes, the law as written seems quite reasonable. It's encouraging to find anti-drug laws that limit themselves to addressing a particular angle of particular problem.

I'm surprised that they scuttle these boats after a single trip. I realise that they cost a small percentage of the cargo but it still seems wasteful.

The illegal drugs are the ballast, so once they have been unloaded either the vessel with be radar visible or a substitute ballast would be needed. Since the ballast is basically in the crew quarters, you can't just use sea water. I'm sure they've run the cost/benefits here, and presumably judged the extra risks not worth the cost savings.

I'm not convinced by that. Sea water would be the logical ballast and I realise you can't have it sloshing about around the crews' feet but I don't think it would be too difficult to have a system of bags along to hull of the boat connected to a water inlet. When the boat is full of cocaine they would be stowed out of the way and then when the cocaine is taken off they're flooded compensating for the lost mass. Manufacturing plastic bladders with sufficient strength in the jungle might not be possible but I doubt they're all that difficult to purchase. Worst case scenario they're purchased in the US and only installed when the semi-sub collects them from the fast boats.

Autonomous, buoyancy-powered subs: http://spray.ucsd.edu/

A fleet of them - the future of drug trafficking?

Judging from the statements in the article, it's the future of the drug war as well. That's an interesting vision of the future -- increasingly sophisticated autonomous smugglers and coast guards battling it out. It's better than putting human lives at risk, I suppose. Most of the people on these boats are probably low-level flunkies anyway.

Those looking to evade and pass through have a much easier job than subs looking to detect others.

Drug smuggling is astoundingly successful. When there is a "big" bust, it is on the news. That's not very often. They miss 90%+ of the shipments.

The transport is only one part of the equation. Millions are in prison for drug related crimes. The risk to human life from prohibition is far greater than the potential cost of increased addiction (though evidence points towards decreased addiction with programs focused on treatment rather than prison)

I thought another future idea was to attach some sub-like vehicle to something like a cruise ship and hitch a ride & hide in its "shadow". At some destination, maybe a port of call, frogmen secretly release it.

Soon, we might start seeing drug traffickers flying small stealth UAVs over the border with a few pounds of cocaine inside them, LOLOL. I wonder how the feds are going to fight that...