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Drug Runners Perfect Long-Range Subs
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Authorities have captured a 74-foot camouflaged submarine — nearly twice as long as a city bus — with twin propellers and a 5-foot conning tower that, with a crew of four to six, has a maximum operational range of 6,800 nautical miles on the surface, can go 10 days without refueling and was probably designed to ferry cocaine underwater to Mexico. The vessel carries a payload of 9 tons of cocaine with a street value of about $250 million and uses a GPS chart plotter with side-scan capabilities, a high-frequency radio, an electro-optical periscope and an infrared camera mounted on the conning tower—visual aids that supplement two miniature windows in the makeshift cockpit. "This is the most sophisticated sub we've seen to date," says Jon Wallace who has headed the Personal Submersibles Organization, or Psubs, for 15 years. "It's a very good design in terms of shape and controls." In the meantime jungle shipbuilders continue to perfect their craft."
The DEA perfects the Depth Charge.
The number of people I know who think drugs are legal now because of the medical Marijuana laws. Let me be the first to say though, 9 tons of processed plant matter should not be worth $250 million. Isn't that $14k/lb? Who the heck is snorting it at that price? A sub is a small price to pay for that.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Sounds like the kind of thing that takes more than a few engineers to build. I wonder what toys they hand out at recruitment fairs?
Can we just fucking legalise and tax drugs, rather than let murderous druglords make billions off the black market? It 's a choice of two evils, but at least the corporations will pay tax.
I can't believe people think that if you pretend it doesn't happen it will go away. Let's fucking deal with it using scientific enquiry and logical, rational arguments related to economics and crime. Emotional appeals to 'the evil drugs' are a fucking waste of time. It's a shame that it is political suicide to even entertain ideas about legalisation, thanks to all the fuckwit voters out there. Mostly old people stuck in their conservative ways. I can't wait for these people to die off and we can start learning lessons from history and move forward as a species.
Can you imagine how bad the cartels would be hurting if this stuff got legalized? You'd better believe they'd be buying up senators left and right to keep it banned.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
This should be motive enough to legalize some drugs or at least restrict sales such that it would stop the South Americans from shipping coke to the US.
Once naval and intelligence experts become concerned of the sub building capabilities and detection of these subs it acknowledges that this poses a risk to US security. I read earlier articles that indicated ex-Russian sub designers were being hired by the Cartels to build their sub.
I don't think there's any major worry of these subs being virtually undetectable like the current American subs or carrying nukes or torpedoes but I think there might be a concern that some of these people would go to work for some other country at some point. Hell, if they're building these kinds of subs in the jungle, I'd be concerned about what they can do if they don't have to be so conspicuous.
I've been building autonomous vessels since 2004 and the very first potential customer was a guy who wanted to smuggle weed and cigs from Switzerland to Italy with one. Had to wait a few months for an actual legit customer and I get that sort of call/email twice a year on average. I could've made a lot of money, but eh.
I've heard of side-scan radar and side-scan sonar. What the fuck is side-scan GPS? Wouldn't the vessel have to be on the surface to receive a GPS signal, or if submerged, extend some sort of antenna above the ocean surface? What in the name of Cthulhu are they scanning laterally for? Does the US Navy have a secret GPS constellation that orbits underwater or something? Methinks the writer studied journalism at the University of Make Shit Up.
Wake me up when they're delivering drugs via spaceships. Then I will be impressed.
that when you restricts something its value sky rockets and make people rich by dealing in that item. Mind you the DEA and company probably rake in more money then the cartels so there's no reason to make that item legal.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
By having these drug laws, we provide incentive for criminals to circumvent them. It's no surprise that these drug rings have used more sophisticated methods to smuggle their products into the U.S. The more we ramp up "protecting" our population from drugs, the more drug lords ramp up their methods of importing drugs. Now that these methods exist, there's no reason why terrorists can't use it to piggyback dangerous devices. In summary, add another "+1" to the long list of negatives stemming from our War on Drugs.
Two steps: Colombia to Mexico, Mexico to US.
You can bet the USN & CIA detection equipment from sea floor mounted sensors will be able to pick up the known propulsion signatures.
Sounds transmit underwater for very long distances which will limit the number of sensors particularly if "well placed" at known transit spots.
It won't be long before they can pretty much find, follow and intercept as they wish.
I've been around rich people and around poor people. Almost without exception, the poor people have been more honest and a better class of people.
You are extremely naive if you don't think that a large percentage of the drug money isn't being laundered into the hands of the 'legitimate' people who run the government and wear three piece suites. That is why the drug trade is allowed to go on. It is making too many people too much money. If there was a real desire to shut down the trade, it could be shut down overnight. It would be nice if drugs were legalized, but i don't think it will happen as long as so many people are making so much money.
Think about it. The coast guard and the DEA are the drug runners best friends. Who else would artificially inflate the price of these plants. Likewise the DEA, and coast guard have to love the drug runners. Their jobs, and all the neat toys they get to play with are all purchased to fight this endless war on drugs.
When prohibition was finally lifted, it was the rum runners who came to power in the USA (Kennedy et. al) The ironic thing is that even when alcohol was legitimately taxed, it was still the rum runners who were making the money (Kennedy et. al). The only difference is the instead of the crooked individuals being gangsters they became politicians.
Outlaws are going to become fucking billionaires. They are going to spend a lot of that money arming their own private armies. Thousands of innocent people will be slaughtered and displaced.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Can we just fucking legalise and tax drugs, rather than let murderous druglords make billions off the black market? It 's a choice of two evils, but at least the corporations will pay tax.
Hold the phone... Now I may of only had a past selling cannabis, and smuggling hash, but I "always" paid my taxes. Twice in the case of Massachusetts when I would buy the "Drug Stamps", and again when I paid my taxes -state and federal- as one normally would. Then I would donate to my local schools.
I may of risked prison, broken the law, and (insert paranoia jokes here) always waiting for the day I would be busted. But you "never" fuck with the IRS. Because while the DEA may not catch on, the IRS will truly fuck you up.
Last I checked, with the famed Dutch-Irish sandwich, most corporations don't really pay all that much tax.
So, in your view, you prefer to COMBINE the effects of the "highly addictive substances" which "entrap lives" with all the side-effects of prohibition, since the prohibition has no chance of actually working in practice because in order to be effective, the counter measures require essentially a totalitarian police state apparatus to be erected, which also presents additional power concentration and profit opportunities for the "authorities" - see also: private prisons etc, not to mention dispensing with all of these inconvenient civil liberties and personal freedoms, Habeas Corpus and the like hindrances for the Holy Crusaders of Anti-Addiction.
So if you are intellectually honest with us, you also advocate a complete Big Brother 24/7/365 all-encompassing surveillance totalitarianism, since it is the only possible scenario under which the supposed "benefits" (i.e. no addicts) of the prohibition could ever be realized. That is, of course, if you are a believer in totalitarian police states and think Orwell's 1984 was an instruction manual.
All to "save us" from ourselves.
No?
Imagine what would happen if the moon were made of cocaine. We would already have extremely cheap spacecraft making daily trips to the moon and back, carrying tons of moon rocks. It wouldn't take long for our satellite to disappear from our skies into our noses.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
"Authorities have captured a 74-foot camouflaged submarine."
Something tells me it's not quite perfect yet.
Per capita alcohol consumption in the US went down.
I don't have a link for that, but I get my numbers from a chart I saw in a museum at Mt. Vernon. Alcohol consumption per capita was massive at the end of the 19th century, but through Prohibition it stayed flat and when Prohibition ended, it decreased.
My first guess would be that the vicarious thrill of being a law-breaker increased consumption. I suspect that something like that is also true of drug consumption in the US. Take away the thrill of eating the forbidden fruit and consumption may just well drop.
The cartels already have the capital. If drugs get legalized, they'll just move more heavily into kidnapping and slavery.
Same thing as after Prohibition, organized crime just moved into other territories. There is no way to turn back the clock and prevent the cartels from coming to power in the first place.
Not that this is an argument against legalization, mind you. It's just the observation that one particular argument for legalization doesn't hold that much weight.
Actually you are quite right. The true reason for all the "prohibitions" is pencil-necked control-freaks who positively cannot stand someone, somewhere doing something in private they do not approve of. All the whining about "addictions" (in case of drugs) or "innocent children" (in case of sexual material on the net) is just a smoke screen.
Sexual gratification they derive from enforcing their will on others is what it is all about.
http://narcoticnews.com/World-Record-Cash-Seizure-205+-Million-Dollars-in-Mexico-City.php
How's that prohibition of murder working out for you? huh, guess we should legalize it, then.
Just because you can't eliminate it completely doesn't mean it's worthless to fight it.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
I guess they got help and supply from north korea in exchange for hard money == $$ , these subs can also be used to circumvent the international embargo, and they are not that expensive than their real minisubs. Think about it China is North Koreas biggest trading partner and needs foreign currency to survive .. and NK can make trades through china as a middleman. NK also tried to deliver "things" to Iran, the transport ship was chased by U.S. vessels NK even threaten SK+US with escalating war even to a nuclear level.
And NK has skilled engineers, from intercontinental rockets to nuclear fission bombs/reactors, up to NK built mini subs.
I think the drug bosses should open source the design of the vessel ;)
How much cocaine do I have to buy to get to keep the wrapper, these "subs"?
If they're not being used to smuggle the cash back to the jungle, maybe I can get the sub here in NYC, rather than let it swim home and possibly get caught.
How much for just the sub?
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make install -not war
Gorbachev's changes were more about limited access. You could still buy vodka but you could only buy limited quantities and at limited times. Which drove sales to the black market. Which hurt the Russian economy.
Hell, that's kind of like Washington state's laws as of 10 years ago when you couldn't buy vodka on a Sunday because all the liquor stores are state-owned.
Alcohol (and other drugs) are complex subjects that cannot be "solved" with simplistic solutions.
Unfortunately, most politicians can only think in the most simplistic of sound-bites so that's all we ever get.
The "gangs" will try to find other sources of income.
And they will fight over those.
The problem for the "gangs" is that nothing else has the mark-up that illegal drugs do. They just won't make much money.
Not to mention that the majority of drug dealers live with Mom because they do NOT make much money.
So the "gangs" will, probably, switch to standard organized crime staples such as "protection racks", "illegal gambling" and "smuggling" other items such as cigarettes to turn a profit from the tax differentials between states/cities.
The core problem is that no one understands basic politics and economics. It's all about the local people establishing their own political and economic system inside of the USofA's national/state system. Which leads to their own "police force" and "judicial system".
QUICK!!! Someone should tell Portugal before their addiction rates continue to drop, along with all the other benefits they've seen in the 10 years or so since they decriminalised ALL illegal drugs.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-drug-decriminalization
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-drug-decriminalization
It does, it's been done, and it works.
Now we only need to figure out how to make drug smuggling to Mars profitable and we'll have manned interplanetary space flight in no time.
...the source of this whole raging drug war river is "ZOMG, we can't let Joe Nobody in Pootville get high!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars
Well, they recovered, but not without massive cost. Massive intervention (i.e. war) is the only thing that saved them.
char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}";main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}
The Mayans! Ha! Couldn't even finish their little calendar. That's what happened to them: they all got the munchies at once, went out for snakcs, and were NEVER SEEN AGAIN! Wooooooooooooooo!
Don't forget the shrinks and the religious con men who don't want people getting cured/finding enlightenment without paying through the nose first.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
the problem is, by my determination, legalization will result in a larger number of users. this problem, in my mind, is more potent than all the bad side effects of prohibition. so prohibition should continue, with highly addictive drugs
There's a couple of points to be made here, first I don't think there is any evidence that these drugs are not already affordable and accessible to those who wish to experiment with them, I have been offered methamphetamine/methylamphetamine (which the media here in NZ refer to as "P", and most users/dealers refer to as "speed"), more often than I have been offered cannabis, so anecdotally at least, I would say that it is just as accessible. So who exactly are we "freeing" from addiction here?
Methamphetamine's high street price and ease of manufacture means that it is the preferred revenue stream for gangs, who are the main producers of it. I can't quote a source, but fairly recently it was mentioned that only about 8% of the illicit pseudoephedrine (precursor) that goes through our ports is detected by customs, add to that the fact that pseudoephedrine itself is reasonably easy to produce, by fermenting glucose with a benzaldehyde (artificial almond essence) catalyst.
The clandestine manufacture of methamphetamine, although simple, is most often carried out by woefully unqualified and poorly equipt individuals, who are frequently users themselves, and horrifyingly, sometimes in the presence of children. Labs often explode, because of the highly flammable solvents used in the synthesis. The various pollutants produced by this clandestine manufacture are detected in rental accommodation and motels long after the lab is gone, these pollutants are known carcinogens and asthma inducers. None of these labs would exist if not for methampetamine prohibition.
Why aren't they using their skills to make small personal subs for the consumer market? There's lots of idiots out there who would love their own sub, but won't pay the 1/2 mil it takes to get a small one.
Then they'd have a nice, legit business to use as a cover for their drug subs, and could probably increase the quality and reduce the cost of them.
Never mind that, it'd be interesting to put an American sub to hunting these things for a month or so, and see how many they find. I'd bet zero, showing how cost effective a small fleet of these things, each running on batteries and carrying one or two missiles or torpedos, would be against pretty much anyone.
I know plenty of people who used, even abused, meth, coke and heroin without becoming addicted. Of course I also know plenty who did become addicted. Most of those who took them at all already had poorly adjusted personalities. They were self-destructive for some reason predating their drug use, and used those drugs to play out their self-destructive desires. Both because of the chances of addiction and the other health problems from abuse.
Legalizing these addictive drugs will make helping those people easier. Fewer will take the drugs, because it's not "outlaw" behavior. And instead of treating them as criminals, we'll be letting them exercise their freedom (their right, even to destroy themselves) and then actually helping them when they burn out their freedom because they couldn't handle it.
And in the meantime crank way down the gangs, the police states, the corruption, and the vast damage to everything it touches that prohibition brings.
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make install -not war
So you would respond to the loss of freedom that these drugs impose upon the users by... taking freedom away from the users? Say what?
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
Sure, the cartels are alreadly invested in other market niches.
But if the grug niche were cut off, they wouldn't mobilize further into other niches?
imagine the most orwellian government possible, and it will be a government that uses highly addictive drugs to control the masses. highly addictive drugs are the greatest enemy to freedom in the history of the world. if you don't understand this, you understand nothing
That is exactly what is happening right now. Through prohibition, government (and criminal gangs, and powerful lobbies) are using drugs to control the masses and get what they want. "If you don't understand that you understand nothing." (Notice how I threw that back in your face at the end there? I would never say anything like that under normal circumstances because it adds nothing to the argument. Make a good argument so that it stands alone. Then you don't have to accuse people of being stupid if they disagree with you.)
As for your issue with addictive substances ruining people's lives. My opinion is that those lives simply are not worth saving. It is just survival of the fittest. If you want to F yourself up on meth, go right ahead. Give the drugs out freely and force people to be responsible for themselves. Eventually society (and the species) will be better for it. Though there is likely to be a lot of ugliness and pain along the way. Unfortunately most people (as you exemplify) are unwilling to go through the growing pain phase to get to something better. This is another major flaw in our species. It is the same flaw that will prevent us from making significant cuts to the deficit before the country goes bankrupt.
The Wikipedia article is pretty cool. Those guys are getting inventive. Then again, with a QUARTER BILLION FREAKING DOLLARS at stake, so would I.
Semi-submersibles are hard to spot from patrol ships, but are easy to detect from the air. To address this problem, a new concept was adopted by smugglers. Instead of a full-featured self-propelled ship, a "torpedo"-style cargo container is used with a ballast tank (submersion control) to keep it at about 30 m under water while being towed by a regular fishing boat. If a patrol ship is spotted, the "torpedo" cargo container is released. While still submerged, it automatically releases one buoy concealed as a wooden log and equipped with a location transmitter system for a second support fishing vessel to retrieve it and continue the cocaine delivery.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
One of the problems is that with ANY regulation, there is a chance for profit from the black market.
The core problem is that the "gangs" are attempting to set up their own political / economic systems with themselves in charge. They will pursue whatever generates income. Even if that income is only enough to purchase weapons and ammo.
They've outsourced drug use, too?
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, what does this say about renewable power?
As interesting as that article is, decriminalization is a different beast from legalization, and would likely sound just as Big Brother-y as the status quo to te GP. After all, the only thing that's changing is that instead of throwing addicts into jail they help them in treatment centers, selling it is still criminalized.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Try this: find a kid in high school and ask her what's easier to buy: booze or weed.
If weed is so easy to purchase today, it doesn't follow that legalization will create a significant increase is usage.
Get away from the bias of wanting to believe that legalization will significantly or dramatically increase drug use and abuse, and you're left with the realization that the current form of government addressing the ill of drug abuse is far worse than the abuse itself.
damaged by dogma
at least the corporations will pay tax.
What if GE got into the drug trade?
GE pays taxes in the country where the profits are "made". GE engineers its business so that the profits are generated in countries other than the US, countries that have lower tax rates than the US. So if GE entered the drug trade the Columbian subsidiary of GE would sell the drugs to the US subsidiary of GE at about the US retail rate. So all the profits would be "made" by the Columbian subsidiary and only Columbia would collect taxes on the drug profits. The global business would be engineered so that the US subsidiary just breaks even.
Seriously, dude. A pot-related referendum in CA shows an almost-even split in public opinion. A murder-related referendum results are so obvious to anyone except you, we don't bother running it. You don't see a difference, really?
Drugs: hurt users mostly, or no one at all; considered ethical by large strata of the population; prohibition in democratic states is proven to be ineffective.
Murder: hurts others only; considered unethical by almost everyone everywhere; prohibition is proven to reduce the rate dramatically.
Oh no no no. Jesus tells us, our body is our temple, so defiling it with drugs would be unethical. We can explain it much better if you come to our church, where we (and our underage children) drink sacrificial alcohol as a condition for the salvation of our soul.
Murder? Talk about intellectual dishonesty!
If you wanted a direct analogy, you would have to be talking about suicide. That is because drug use, like suicide, is a self-inflicted malady.
Funny thing is, if you were to try to enforce a ban on suicides, you would also need a draconian police state complete with daily brain scans to detect suicidal moods!
That is of course due to the obvious relationship between attempting to enforce one's "morality" onto others and basis for totalitarian police states: i.e. they are one and the same.
"the problem is, by my determination, legalization will result in a larger number of users. this problem, in my mind, is more potent than all the bad side effects of prohibition. so prohibition should continue, with highly addictive drugs"
Ignorance is not bliss. And willful ignorance spouting off on the internet is painful to watch.
The two most dangerous drugs are currently legal. They are called alcohol and tobacco. Their addictive qualities are the equal of any illegal drug. The death toll due to tobacco is staggering and alcohol does far more damage that any of the pathetic drugs you listed. Yet they are perfectly legal. So if alcohol and tobacco are okay, why restrict the others? That is the fundamental problem with prohibiting some drugs and not others. There is no actual logic behind it.
They used chinese parts for the thing and if they got caught taking the drugs to china, they'd be executed.
(sunglasses) ...submarine patents?
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
which do you think is closer to prohibition?
Talk about overdramatization.
My point was, in case you missed it, that arguing that something should be made legal just because it'll never dissapear completely is idiotic, and as such if you want legalization you'll have to provide a far stronger argument than that.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Drugs: hurt users mostly, or no one at all; considered ethical by large strata of the population; prohibition in democratic states is proven to be ineffective.
Citation needed. As I replied to another guy above, decriminalization is a very different beast from legalization, which to my knowledge hasn't been tried anywhere. Find me a (large) place where manufacturing and selling Cocaine and LSD is as trouble-free as making and selling bread, let's take a look at the before and after, and then we'll talk.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
I liked the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cobra_(novel)/.
or their kids will see a similar story about smugglers and their unregulated spacecraft.
"this ship, nicknamed the Falcon after an obscure science fiction reference, was discovered hidden in orbit on the dark side of the moon..."
"No good deed goes unpunished"
That SHOULD be the end goal. But wait one moment.
Sadly, no, they won't.
Which brings me back to the other point. There will ALWAYS be a segment that cannot participate in the established system due to some reason. These people WILL attempt to establish themselves as the head of their own government. Even if they can only manage "warlordism" and "rule" through violence in their segment.
Think about the mafia and longshoremen or teamsters.
Actually, you do. The mafia runs alcohol from cheap states/cities to expensive states/cities. That's why part of the local government's alcohol control board investigates where the local bars are buying their alcohol from. If they don't have legitimate receipts, they are fined.
The same with hijacking a shipment of cigarettes.
They're just trying to get to The Island!!
While its pretty cool that some folks built a personal sub, looking at the pictures I am not sure how easy they might find "volunteers" to pilot the thing. I mean much of it looks held together with string and duct tape, though from the outside it looks impressive enough.
What I find funny is that the Drug runners probably have more subs than Ecuador!
... they wouldn't have gotten caught.
Where's the mod points of a few days ago when I need 'em? Instead, I had 'em for 'Fools' Day!
Duncan
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master,
and if you use the program, he is your master."
R Stallman
The argument was actually not about that addiction is impossible to stamp out, but about the ridiculous strength of enforcement-based measures required to achieve even moderate "success" in stamping it out. And these measures, and their consequences, even at their smallest scale, are far more destructive to us and our societies than any practically possible levels of addiction.
Furthermore, addiction is clearly a medical problem, yet various power and greed crazed individuals insist that we use the police-military-prison-industrial complex to solve it. Even without overwhelming evidence overflowing from all directions demonstrating beyond any doubt the true aim of such measures, this very proposition on its own terrified anyone who knows anything about history and the mechanics of governmental power. Of course people like you never listened in your self-assured conviction that your "moral superiority" overrides any silly objections about forcing your view of the world down other people's throats at gun-point. It never apparently occurred to you that those who cheered and egged you on, and who volunteered to be the "protectors" and "enforcers" of your will had somewhat diverging agendas, a bit wider in scope. But then again, screeching about "alcoholism" then "reefer madness" then "child pornography" and finally "rag-head terrorists" is such a satisfying pursuit for the smug arm-chair "moralists". It gets them invited to pontificate on TV shows, shake hands with "important people" and politicians and be patted on the back by all these glorious "defender knights" in their smart uniforms and body armor. In light of that, who cares about all them hippie, malcontent, "personal freedoms"?! Only a child-molester-drug-dealing-terrorist sympathizer would have wanted them anyway! Defense of the "values" of "this greatest of nations" is what it is all about! Just don't ask exactly what these "values" are.
Also, murder is mostly deterred by societal conditioning, rather then draconian punishments. You can examine the dubious relationship between punishment and deterrence in either historical context or in places like modern-day Saudi Arabia or Indonesia. No penalty, no matter how harsh, will deter people who see the drug run as either their "last chance" to get ahead in the society in which they hit the bottom both financially and psychologically, not to mention the inexhaustible supply of people who are simply too dumb to realize what they are being manipulated into.
Also note that the mechanics of committing murder is nowhere near the same as "carrying some stuff for a friend of mine across the border". One requires overcoming genetically wired thresholds of tribal cohesion, the other actually feeds off the same genes by triggering the "fit into the group" circuitry.
I could go on enumerating reasons why your comparison of drug use and drug running to "murder" was so dishonest, but this should give you a general idea. That is if you actually had any interest in it to begin with, which I doubt.