Drug smuggling

The 4 Types Of Narco Submarines The Military Faces

Less than two weeks after President Trump initiated Enhanced Counter-Narcotic Operations in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean, national security officials are already celebrating seizures of illegal drugs. The imagery used in official tweets center on one of the most difficult threats facing the coast guard: narco submarines.

On April 9 Secretary of Defense Mark Esper tweeted “As of today, the @USNavy and @USCG have already seized 2,100KG of cocaine headed for America using the strategy announced one week ago.” The image chosen showed a narco sub being interdicted by the Coast Guard in the Eastern Pacific on Aug. 31, 2015. A similar message was posted on the official Southern Command twitter account. It used a more up to date image, from Nov. 4 last year.

So what are these so-called “narco subs” and what are the main types? To a trained eye the two vessels shown in the tweets above are very different from each other, representing different categories...