The submarine, the parasite, the pitufeo and the other methods invented by Pablo Escobar for drug trafficking and are still valid

Pablo Escobar came to charge hundreds of millions of euros a week with drug trafficking. For that, it was pioneered several methods of trafficking with those who sent cocaine abroad. A submarine, chemical processes, a fleet of aircraft, mules, double bottom bags, fishing boats are just some of the ways used to fill the United States with drugs. At the moment, Colombian criminal gangs have taken over some of these strategies and sophisticated others.

Perhaps the biggest mystery on the illicit trade that the extinguished leader of the Medellin cartel has raised is a supposed submarine that two exaggerated CIA would have found. Doug Lax and Ben Smith carried out an inspection in the seas of Colombia, where they found the remains of the ship which, moreover, would have hidden a guaca of about 70 million dollars.

The expedition was televised by the program Find millions of Escobar from the Discovery UK channel. The documentary is recorded when professional divers find scraps of metal on the ship and a box that appears to be a battery. But they never find the so-called money or medicine that would stay there. Little credit that Escobar really had a submarine.

The corporal had failed in his attempt to purchase a Soviet submarine with the help of Cuba's then president, the late Fidel Castro. And, in truth, on the international black market, it's impossible to get one, which is why the new bosses chose to manufacture them with their own means. This has been confirmed by the Colombian police force, which has already seized vessels of this type.

In 2017, the Colombian Navy found the first electric submarine used to transport cocaine in the San Juan and Baudó river basin, a rural area in the Chocó Department bordering Panama. It was a huge 11-meter green boat, which contained, which thanks to its electric propulsion could sail up to three meters below the surface, up to three tons of coke.

The submersible was built manually with naval steel plates, with four stabilizer fins, radar and navigation cameras, and over 100 batteries that powered both electric motors used for immersion. Its construction, which should last between five and six months, has cost more than $ 1.5 million, according to estimates by the authorities.

"The batteries that power the machine do not produce gas and allow immersion navigation, which makes their detection difficult," said the Navy at that time. They explained that it does not appear in the radars, but as a point with which the waves are also indicated. Its manufacture was so complex that the authorities badume that its author worked in the navy, because almost nobody has this specialty. And according to the investigation, it could belong to an alliance between the Gulf Clan and the ELN.

With this submarine, they discovered a new strategy of drug transportation abroad, which concretized the idea that the most important drug trafficker ever established in Colombia was before, without being able to achieve it. And in the same way, Escobar has taken over sophisticated methods employing gangs of criminals specializing in illicit trade, who have taken over others that made Colombia, in the 1980s, the largest exporter of cocaine in the United States.

Other methods of Escobar

Pablo Escobar had a fleet of 15 planes and 6 helicopters with clandestine itineraries in different parts of the Colombian jungle and in other countries to deliver cocaine directly to the United States. But there were also other distribution methods that varied, although since then, they have been used by different drug traffickers. In recent years, these strategies have had an unusual return.

The reasons are varied, a police source told the newspaper The spectator. One of them concerns the seizures of the authorities, because when a big cargo falls, drug traffickers lose a lot of money. This has forced criminals to smuggle in smaller quantities, which means fewer losses if discovered and, on the other hand, makes detection more difficult. This strategy is known as Smurf& # 39;

In the 1980s, the Medellín Cartel bribed airlines and tourist boats to ship small amounts of doga. Escobar managed to get up to two tons of cocaine in small sailboats from Urabá to Central America. The modality has resurfaced but in luxury jets Last year, British authorities discovered a charter flight that had left Bogota with 500 kilos of hydrochloride.

So they discovered a large network that used VIP service companies to rent luxury jets where the fake entrepreneurs who come to do "business" have been camouflaged in Colombia and they embarked with their designer suitcases filled with coca paste. This method was used by Escobar with his partner Carlos Lehder, who bought an island in the Bahamas for landing.

They are also the ones who put the calls in placemules"People who ingest medicine capsules or carry them with their bodies, or in their double-bottom suitcases, travel to other countries. It is still a widely used strategy, now even the capsules also carry money, it is the way to transport the profits of an illegal activity from one country to another. other.

Another method that has been perfected is that used by Escobar to drop the goods on board the aircraft at sea, which was then recovered by motor boats to transport it to Yumi. The system was discovered by the DEA and stopped using. But Colombian drug traffickers have turned it into what they call & # 39;parasites& # 39;

The Navy explains that "parasites" are tubes filled with cocaine hanging on merchant shipswith or without complicity, that they carry a buoy with a locator. If the ship is intercepted in one way or another by the authorities, the narcos release the parasites, which quickly move away at three or four nautical miles. When the operation ends, they recover the cargo that is precisely located by satellite.

Among the strategies that came back is one of the most famous of Escobar, for his audacity: impregnate clothes with liquid cocaine, that after recovery from a chemical process. The corporal was wearing jeans, but when the authorities discovered it, they began to check every order for clothing sent abroad.

Then the head of the Medellín cartel decided to start impregnate the cardboard boxes in which the jeans were. If an expedition was intercepted, the authorities would keep the clothes to check it and discard the boxes, which would then be recovered by the narcotics and recover the drugs.

This same method is used now, but not just wearing clothes, but hide cocaine by a chemical process in creams, gels, exfoliants, Adhered in plastic, mixed with charcoal, fruit pulp. They even change the appearance of the drug, such as its color and smell, so that it goes unnoticed at airport checkpoints.

Last year, the anti-narcotics police at the El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá confiscated a 90 cm painting of the Virgin Mary where they hid 10 kilos of pink cocaine, better known as 2CB, between the ink and the frame. The cargo would have a value of $ 35,000 on the black market in the United States.

Forty years after the invention of these methods by Pablo Escobar and his partners in the Medellin cartel, the current narcos use them again. And the authorities – details El Espectador – are investigating the fact that the return of former and powerful drug traffickers of that time back to the country after serving their sentence in the United States is another reason for this change.