In Four Days The U.S. Navy Seized 3 Narco Subs This Month

The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard interdicted three Low Profile vessels (LPVs), known as Narco Submarines, in quick succession in May 2020 H I Sutton (photos US Navy, US Coast Guard)

Forbes: 3 Narco Submarines In 4 Days: Navy And Coast Guard Make Impact

The success of the new Enhanced Counter-Narcotics Operations, being run by U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) are slowly coming out. Since April 1 the Command has dedicated more naval assets to stemming the flow of illicit drugs into the United States. During four short days in mid-May the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard stopped three narco submarines in their tracks.

News of the interdictions is only now coming out in a series of press releases. There is often a lag reporting these incidents, especially when they are intercepts at sea. Part of the reason for this may be that it gives law enforcement a brief window where the cartel may not know that the sub has been seized. This allows intelligence leads to be followed up without alerting the drug traffickers. In some cases this can result in another drugs bust where the next narco-sub in the chain is also caught.

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WNU Editor: The sensors that the U.S. Navy to detect these low profile vessels must be incredible.

The U.S. State Department Is Prepared To Spend $10 billion On Their "Drug-War" Air Force

U.S. Ready to Offer Mercenaries $10 Billion for a Drug-War Air Force -- Danger Room

Unsure how your private security firm makes money as the U.S. war in Afghanistan winds down? One option: Go into the drug trade — more specifically, the lucrative business of fighting narcotics. The State Department needs a business partner to keep its fleet of drug-hunting helicopters and planes flying worldwide. You could make up to $10 billion-with-a-B.

Starting next month in Melbourne, Florida, the State Department will solicit some defense-industry feedback on a contract to help operate its 412 aircraft, based in at least eight nations, before it reopens the contract for bidding. Among the missions the diplomatic corps needs fulfilled: “Provide pilots and operational support for drug interdiction missions such as crop spraying, and the transport of personnel and cargo,” according to a pre-solicitation the department’s bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs released on Friday.

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My Comment: $10 billion on a war that it is clearly losing.

How NOT To Run A Worldwide Anti-Narcotics Program

Cocaine seized aboard The Macel ship in December 2001. The seizure totaled 9,291 kilograms of cocaine. DEA

Pentagon Error Suspends Anti-Narcotics Programs Worldwide -- Washington Examiner

Pentagon counternarcotics and counterterrorism operations around the world were abruptly suspended this month when the Defense Department officials overseeing the programs failed to ensure they were funded by congressional authorizations, according to documents obtained by The Washington Examiner. The lapse has caused serious national security and diplomatic problems for the U.S. military, according to Defense Department officials.

The authorizations cover joint counternarcotics operations with foreign governments, as well as federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in the U.S.

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My Comment: This is an unbelievable story that should be front page news everywhere. Read it all and wonder who and what is running our government.

Africa Is Becoming The Hub For The International Narcotics Trade

Image from The Telegraph

Islamic Militants Boosting Role In Drug Trade -- Washington Times

The sea lanes of the South Atlantic have become a favored route for drug traffickers carrying narcotics from Latin America to West and North Africa, where al Qaeda-related groups are increasingly involved in transporting the drugs to Europe, intelligence officials and counternarcotics specialists say.

A Middle Eastern intelligence official said his agency has picked up "very worrisome reports" of rapidly growing cooperation between Islamic militants operating in North and West Africa and drug lords in Latin America. With U.S. attention focused on the Caribbean and Africans lacking the means to police their shores, the vast sea lanes of the South Atlantic are wide open to illegal navigation, the official said.

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More News On Africa And the International Narcotics Trade

Guinea-Bissau: Cocaine's traffic hub -- L.A. Times
UN warns emerging armies of drug addicts in Guinea-Bissau -- Earth Times
Drugs threaten stability in Guinea-Bissau -- UPI
West Africa may become major narcotics producer-UN -- Reuters
Boeing transporting cocaine from South America to Africa crashes -- The Telegraph
South American drug traffickers used a Boeing cargo jet to smuggle drugs to West Africa earlier this month. -- Radio Netherlands

After A Massacre, Silence Shrouds Mexican Town

The picture below is $205 million US seized in a drug raid in Mexico.

From The International Herald Tribune:

VILLA AHUMADA, Mexico: A massacre here two weeks ago has turned this once sleepy town into a ghostly emblem of the drug violence that has swept Mexico over the past year and a half, gutting local police forces, terrifying citizens and making it almost impossible for the authorities to assert themselves.

On the night of May 17, dozens of men with assault rifles rolled into town in several trucks and shot up the place. They killed the police chief, two officers and three civilians. Then they carried off about 10 people, witnesses said. Only one has been located, found dead and wrapped in a carpet in Ciudad Juárez.

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My Comment: This is a perfect text case example of how drugs, if not curtailed, will produce a culture of violence, poverty, and a breakdown of the civil/legal/and political process. In the long run, this will produce the environment that civil strife and war feed on. Colombia, Afghanistan, are the end results from this lack of focus in stopping this trade.

Expect Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, to soon follow Mexico's problems with a drug culture.