The submarines are of a model that is hardly visible since they lie low in the water and are propelled at a height with the water surface. Six such were discovered and stopped, as it appears, on a new route across the Pacific Ocean from Colombia en route to Australia.
They were then 480 nautical miles from the Colombian coast. On one of them, five tons of cocaine were found.
Among the seizures during the six-week-long operation, not only from the "narcotics submarines", a total of 225 tons of cocaine were seized. This is the largest amount of the drug to date for a single operation.
According to UN estimates, the global production of cocaine amounts to around 2,700 tons of cocaine per year.
This constitutes a significant part of the cocaine trade, even when weighing in the large quantities of drugs leaving the region, says Captain Manuel Rodríguez, head of the Colombian navy's unit for drug enforcement.
More than 400 people were arrested in connection with the operation, in which, among others, the USA, EU, and Australia participated.
