Gangs will use submarines to bring drugs to UK

A British task force patrolling the Caribbean this summer, led by HMS Manchester, will be on the lookout for attempts to evade detection by shipping narcotics under the waves.

Smugglers have already used midget submarines to transport illegal drugs into the United States along the west coast of Latin America, and navy chiefs fear the tactic will spread to other routes.

Rear-Admiral Mark Anderson, the navy's commander of operations, said: "We are starting to see them, as they face this very effective multinational multi-agency response, using increasingly more exotic means to get their drug traffic through.

"We're starting to see the use of submarines on the west coast of the peninsula. The expectation is that if they're successful there, they will start to use (them] in the other passages."

Intelligence suggests the diesel-powered midget submarines used by traffickers, which are just eight to ten metres long and can carry five tonnes of cocaine, are imported from other countries.

So far the Royal Navy has never intercepted a drugs submarine, although last year it seized more cocaine than all the police forces in England and Wales put together.

Type 42 destroyer HMS Manchester will be based in the Caribbean for seven months on a combined disaster relief and counter-narcotics mission supported by Royal Fleet Auxiliary Wave Ruler and a tanker.

If HMS Manchester's powerful sonar finds a drugs submarine, the Navy and its allies will track it and then intercept it when it surfaces.

Estimates suggest 1,400 tonnes of cocaine were moved by sea last year and on any one day there are 20 to 30 tonnes of the drug being shipped across the Atlantic, according to the Navy.

Just 20 tonnes of cocaine would be enough to kill every school child and pensioner in the UK.

Traffickers are increasingly transporting drugs from the Caribbean first to west Africa by sea and then on into the UK.

Rear-Admiral Anderson said that smuggling was a "hugely profitable" business and the traffickers could afford to buy an "extraordinary" variety of expensive equipment.

"They have invested in all modes of transport – some really impressive 'go fast' small boats.

"They now have their own submarines or submersibles or boats that have a very very low above-water profile – just pretty much the wheelhouse, and the rest of the boat is underwater."

A navy spokesman cited a statistic suggesting that drugs cartels worldwide had funds at their disposal equivalent to the UK's entire defence budget, currently some 36 billion a year.

Portsmouth-based HMS Manchester's primary role in the Caribbean is to protect Britain's overseas territories during the upcoming hurricane season.

Gangs will use submarines to bring drugs to UK – admiral