Drug detectives build their own narcotics submarine

Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent

Narcosubs seized on land by Colombian authorities in 2009 (Image: Christian Escobar Mora/AP/Press Association Images)

Drug runners often ferry their illicit cargo to the US mainland using semi-submersible vessels that travel just below wave height. Law enforcement officials need to practise detecting them using radar but, although some of these vessels - known as "narcosubs" - have been captured, they are far too dangerous for staff to use in radar sensor trials. So engineers working for US Customs and Border Protection division have developed Pluto - a version of a narcosub that's safe to sail in.

Narcosubs have a storied history. "Although clandestine semi-submersibles were rumored to exist in the mid-1990s, many believed them to be a myth, hence their name: Bigfoots," says the US Department of Homeland Security in a post on its science and technology website. "Then in 2006, a Colombian semi-submersible was captured by the US Coast Guard in the eastern Pacific Ocean."

US Coast Guards unload 7 tons of cocaine with a street value of $18 million seized from a narcosub in the western Caribbean in 2011 (Image: Tim Boyles/Getty Images)

The cheaply built narcosubs are usually scuttled after a successful multi-million-dollar drugs run to the mainland US, but those that have been captured have generally been found to be cramped deathtraps in which the crew risk being drowned - or suffocated by engine fumes. "The small crews of three or four have little to eat, poor air quality, no toilet facilities, and operate with little rest until they reach their destination, and are sometimes watched over by an armed guard," says the DHS.

Their low profile - they generally sail with only 8 centimetres above the waterline - makes them very hard to detect because there's very little superstructure to reflect radar. So Pluto has been developed to mimic this profile, but with conditions geared towards crew safety.

The 14-metre-long sub can travel at 10 knots (18.5 kilometres per hour) and is being used to refine sensors and detection tactics on Customs and Border Protection's maritime surveillance aircraft stationed at Key West, Florida. In addition, ways to spot narcosubs from space using imaging satellites is under investigation, since the drug runners' latest trick is to risk crew lives still further by going fully submerged, says Tom Tomaiko of the Department of Homeland Security's Borders and Maritime Security Division.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/23590952/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Conepercent0C20A120C0A90Cdrug0Edetectives0Ebuild0Enarcosub0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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