More than 50 members of Colombia's "Bandas Criminales" drug gangs have been indicted on US charges they used custom-built submarines to traffic tons of cocaine, US and Colombian officials said Friday.
The roundup of dozens of suspects is seen as the most important bust yet by a US team - co-operating closely with Colombian authorities - set up in February to smash the narcotics network that has gained notoriety for its unconventional underwater trafficking from South America to the United States.
In announcing the indictments of 56 traffickers, US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Wifredo Ferrer spoke of the "proactive strategy" that allowed US and Colombian authorities to hone in on the "Bandas Criminales." "Our common goal is simple: target the BACRIM leadership, dismantle their narco-trafficking operations, and eliminate the threat they pose to the security of the region and the international community," Ferrer said.
Two separate operations were conducted. In Operation Under the Sea, 22 people were charged for what the US Department of Justice described as "participation in a drug trafficking organisation that built and used fully submersible and semi-submersible submarines to transport cocaine from Colombia to Central America, with the ultimate destination being the United States." Operation Seven Trumpets - focusing on traffickers who used planes to transport tons of cocaine from clandestine South American airstrips to similar landing sites in Central America, and eventually on to the United States - led to 34 of the indictments.
Neither US nor Colombian authorities said where the operations that led to the indictments took place. In Bogota, President Juan Manuel Santos said at least 30 people were arrested. Among them were four "big guns" including Alvaro Suarez, who once served as a pilot for Pablo Escobar, the elusive Medellin cartel drug lord who was killed in a shootout with Colombian police in 1993.
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