Plummeting cocaine prices are forcing drug traffickers to reuse their submarines, Spanish police said.
Where submersibles smuggling narcotics from South America to Europe would once have been scuttled — joining a “narco-sub graveyard” between the Azores and the Canary Islands — a production glut has halved cocaine prices in recent years, and submersibles are now refueling at sea to make as many trips as possible, The Guardian reported.
The US government believes only a tiny fraction of such ships, which are shielded from radar and can travel as far as Africa and Australia without refueling, are interdicted globally. Last year, the US Marine Corps unveiled plans for autonomous vessels modeled on narco-subs to aid with forward deployment of critical supplies.