from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] cia-drugs email list reformatted ----- But the Colombian government had no idea...NSA satellite photos didn't reveal... this time the cops insist they are really going to dial the captured phone numbers! -Bob Bogota, Sep 07, 2000 (EFE via COMTEX) -- The discovery of a submarine being built near Bogota, with Russian drawing specifications and U.S. telephone numbers, left no doubt as to the links among Colombian, Russian and U.S. organized crime, Colombian police said Thursday. In a joint press conference, Colombian police chief Gen. Luis Ernesto Gilibert and Leo Arreguin, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Colombia, said the sub had been discovered after a three-month investigation. The sub, with a cargo capacity of 150 to 200 tons and presumably destined to carry drugs, was being built "by Colombian drug traffickers with foreign technology," Gilibert told reporters. Colombian drug traffickers "definitely needed foreign help," the police chief said, to which Arreguin added that links between Colombian drug traffickers and foreign organized crime were evident, as the building of the submarine required a lot of money and technology. "In the 32 years I've worked in this field, I have never seen anything like this," Arreguin said in reference to the use of a submarine to transport illegal drugs. "This is not a single cartel... As Gen. Gilibert says, there must be several groups working in this shipment (of 200 tons of drugs). We have records and phone numbers to guide our investigation," he added. "We have records which show connections with the Americans and the Russians, and we have cellular phones. We are going to follow these leads to where these gentlemen are," Arreguin concluded. EFE rrm/dm/vc http://www.efe.es Copyright (c) 2000. Agencia EFE S.A. -- druggingamerica.com copvcia.com dcia.com madcowprod.com JFK narconews.com ===== BOGOTA, Colombia, Sep 08, 2000 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- By land, by air, by sea - and perhaps now under the sea - drug smugglers are becoming ever more innovative in their efforts to outwit authorities and get their cargo across the sea. Drug agents were astounded to discover a sophisticated submarine under construction in a cow pasture outside the capital - 7,500 feet high in the Andes mountains and 210 miles from any port. It apparently was being built for the sole purpose of transporting cocaine. "In the 30-some-odd years I have been in law enforcement I have never seen anything like this," Leo Arreguin, the chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Colombia, said Thursday. The 100-foot submarine, discovered in a warehouse near the suburb of Facatativa on Wednesday, could have crossed an ocean, surfaced off Miami or other coastal cities and surreptitiously unloaded tons of cargo. Police were tipped off by suspicious residents who said Americans were in the area. Blueprints at the warehouse indicated Russians might have been involved as well, authorities said. No arrests have been made. Colombia produces more than 520 tons of cocaine per year. Smugglers go to great lengths to outwit authorities and get the cargo out of the country. Pilots have flown by starlight using night-vision goggles. Entering U.S. airspace, they have dropped their altitude and speed to appear on radar as helicopters coming in from offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. The drugs are either unloaded at clandestine airstrips or dropped in sacks in isolated areas, to be picked up later. In the late 1970s, traffickers used light twin-engine planes to smuggle drugs. During the 1980s, they switched to larger aircraft, like the Lockheed Lodestar. By the 1990s, they had refitted Boeing 727s, their lights and radar transponders turned off to avoid detection as they flew loads of cocaine north. Small quantities are smuggled by "mules," people who hide drugs in false-bottom suitcases or the soles of their shoes, or swallow condoms full of cocaine or have it surgically inserted under their skin. Police say 60 percent of Colombia's cocaine leaves by sea, from miles of coastline on the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Drugs are hidden on freighters amid legitimate merchandise, or on boats supposedly out on fishing expeditions. Speedboats ferry drugs to larger ships offshore. They all face interception by Colombian navy and U.S. Coast Guard officials. Although smugglers have built tiny fiberglass "submersibles" to ferry drugs in the past, they were nothing compared to the submarine, which was more than 11 feet in diameter. "This is very high-tech," said Colombian Navy Capt. Ismael Idrobo, gazing up at the sub, which stood in three sections on lengths of railroad track. "Look at the rudders and the pressurized double hull. This could easily travel ... under the surface of the ocean." Navy Capt. Fidel Azula, a former submarine captain, said even the Colombian navy lacked the knowledge to build such a vessel. "This is unmistakably of superb naval construction," he said. Seized documents contained Russian and American-sounding names, Arreguin said. There were indications Russian engineers were involved, including "a very professional engineer who has constructed submarines before," Arreguin said. The Russian mafia has become increasingly involved in cocaine trafficking to Europe, Arreguin noted. The well-stocked warehouse was empty when police arrived. Surveillance cameras had been mounted on the roof. Welding tools, propane tanks, hard hats, tool boxes and knee pads were scattered about, along with a tool catalogue from the United States. By ANDREW SELSKY Associated Press Writer Copyright 2000 Associated Press, All rights reserved -- druggingamerica.com copvcia.com dcia.com madcowprod.com JFK ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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