And professional diving cartel recruits

Money spins where a drill doesn’t spin – we heard that dozens of times when we got information from Balkan victims arrested for international cocaine smuggling about how they managed to infiltrate everywhere, or to buy, for example, professional divers, and even those of the special forces, who brought them drugs to the ships. They also admitted that the smallest part of their soldiers are involved in cocaine smuggling under duress, but that they also resort to it when they come across a hard rock, and let’s say a sailor is needed to transport a large shipment of cocaine.

In an interview with Vijesti, a member of the international investigation team responsible for combating drug trafficking said the following. He explained the ways in which the mafia from the former Yugoslavia smuggles cocaine from South America to Europe and Australia.

“As smuggling methods evolve, we in the security services adapt our strategies, playing a game of cat and mouse in which any mistake is potentially fatal. However, it has been shown that we can outsmart them, and that seemingly insurmountable obstacles are merely challenges that can be overcome with sufficient courage and ruthless determination to suppress transnational cocaine trafficking,” the same interlocutor said.

Vijesti’s research shows that tighter security measures and increased efforts by international security agencies have led to a significant crackdown on traditional cocaine smuggling methods, forcing cartels to use more complex and expensive methods of cocaine smuggling.

While talking to that team, Vijesti also discovered how much the drug cartels pay for the cocaine trade, who dared to engage in this deadly game, but also which sailors paid the highest price through greed or disobedience, often with their lives.

It was also discovered that drug cartels have been hiring divers for years. They charge a fee for their services, depending on the port where they have to operate, but also on the way the drugs are picked up in the so-called transit zones: international waters from where they are sent to European, American and Australian soil.

The “Vijesti” interlocutor explained that hiding drugs in the suction section of the ship is not new and that international investigators have been working on it for years.

“For years we have found loads of cocaine hidden in crates, that is, in areas where ships take in water for cooling their engines, for example. These openings are technically designed in such a way that when the intake is opened, the protective grids serve to prevent larger fish from passing through the grids, which could clog those intakes under pressure. Suctions from the inside can only be cleaned of what passes through them, which are usually small fish. The outer part is not accessible from the inside, because these spaces are closed due to possible faults, because if they were easily accessible to open, the ship could easily sink. If someone were to open it, the pressure of the underwater part of the water is so great that it is practically unstoppable and the ship melts in a few hours, depending on the size of the ship. Therefore, the only access is from the outside, and in those places drugs are hidden by divers, equipped with tools, who know what they are doing. They are paid from 50 to 80 thousand dollars. Their job is to open the bars from the outside, put the cocaine inside, attach the drugs and re-weld the bars. There is no other way of hooking, because there is a high risk of losing the load,” the interlocutor told Vijesti.

It also explains the amount of money the cartel is willing to pay to divers.

“Whether a diver gets $50,000 or $80,000, or considerably more, depends on the coast, that is, the state and the protection measures of the port. Let’s say in Colombia, in Buenaventura, the water is murky and the visibility is literally zero. Not everyone can dive there with equipment and find a sea chest. Such dives are paid from tens of thousands of dollars and more. This is exactly where divers died and got lost. There were also cases where they were killed due to poor coordination,” said one of the interlocutors from the foreign security service.

He explained that precisely because of this method of cocaine smuggling, the international services agreed that in Colombia, at the container terminals, during the ships’ stay in the terminal, military patrols are carried out continuously around the ships.

“After completing the cargo operations, military divers enter the water with a robot and inspect the entire hull. These measures have helped to significantly reduce the chance of cocaine entering the suction section of the ship,” the same source said.

“These are dangerous operations and death is always in the air,” the investigator says, adding: “One miscalculation, one undetected shipment and the cartels win their battle. That’s why they are always the best in the south.”

Open sea

He points out that this model is also a lot more difficult today, just like bringing in cocaine in containers with legal goods. In fact, scanners have also been installed in ports in the south, such as Manzanillo in Mexico, which was one of the critical points…

“Every truck with a container goes through a scanner that scans deeply, and that is already a risk. We have reduced that possibility to a minimum, as well as the possibility of the crew bringing drugs directly onto the ship. That model has been suppressed since we started to combat cocaine smuggling in the way that we have done in recent years. First of all, the army took over the surveillance of the port, so a crew member who leaves the port and enters it is first searched and then checked on the gangway, because the port is entered via the gangway, and all the time he is watched from the tower by soldiers who are heavily armed. When they get off the gangway, a security car is waiting for them, which they enter and which takes them to the ship,” the Vijesti source said.

However, he explains that through joint actions in the south alone, in recent months, in various operations, they have seized more than a hundred tons of cocaine…

Regarding the loading and unloading of cocaine on the open sea, he said that this has allowed the cartels to increase the number of mercenaries on the ships transporting cocaine.

“Increased security measures have forced the clans to use small fast boats and semi-submarines, which load and unload in international waters, that is, drop or drop cocaine at agreed points. It is not profitable for them with smaller quantities, because the ship still has to be stopped, picked up, stored, transported and disposed of, so they try it with the minimum ton of cocaine. The fact that they have money for it is the best indicator of how dangerous the criminal organizations are and what we are fighting against. Therefore, in order to even try to import cocaine on the open sea, there must be serious coordination and a larger number of people, and this costs a lot, so the cartels resort to the model of payment in the amount of cocaine. With the help of our naval and air forces, we are also very successful in suppressing this method of smuggling, which was also demonstrated this year when we seized several handmade semi-submarines loaded with drugs, dozens of speedboats and fishing boats that “They lie waiting on the open sea, for example in the area of the Galapagos archipelago,” said Vijesti’s interlocutor.

He explained that because drugs are being thrown from the ship, including on the open sea, there must be mercenaries from the drug cartel on the ship.

“Also due to unforeseen circumstances such as route changes, busy ports or delays. In such situations, they must react quickly and inform the cartel of any change, and then act according to the instructions received. Often this means dumping the goods on the open sea, and this strategy ensures that the drugs reach their destination regardless of changes in the ship’s planned routes,” said one of the interlocutors.

He indicated that some reasons for this could be: changes in the ship’s route, port occupancy, delays…

“It happens that a company decides that instead of five ports in Europe, the ship will call at three, and for the other two it skips, it will leave the cargo in one of these three where it docks. That cargo can be transported from there to those two ports by other ships, then by rail, truck, and that is already a problem and a possible loss. That is why it is necessary to have one of their people on board, because that person must react to every change – to report, and then receive an order what to do, which is usually the unloading of goods on the open sea, at an agreed position, that is, a point at sea where the ship will pass in a certain time, so that the reserve team would wait for the cocaine to be dropped by a smaller ship and pick up the drugs,” the interlocutor told Vijesti.

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