How uncrewed narco subs could transform the Colombian drug trade

Fast, stealthy, and cheap--autonomous, semisubmersible drone boats carrying tons of cocaine could be international law enforcement's nightmare scenario. A big one just came ashore. Colombian military officials intercepted this 40-foot-long uncrewed fiberglass "narco sub" in the ocean just off Tayrona National Park. On a bright morning last April, a surveillance plane operated by the Colombian military spotted a 40-foot-long shark-like silhouette idling in the ocean just off Tayrona National Park. It was, unmistakably, a "narco sub," a stealthy fiberglass vessel that sails with its hull almost entirely underwater, used by drug cartels to move cocaine north. The plane's crew radioed it in, and eventually nearby coast guard boats got the order, routine but urgent: Intercept. In Cartagena, about 150 miles from the action, Captain Jaime González Zamudio, commander of the regional coast guard group, sat down at his desk to watch what happened next.