The Mexican military, working with information from U.S. intelligence
services, find nearly six tonnes of cocaine in a makeshift submarine seized
this week off the Pacific coast. 

 SALINA CRUZ, OAXACA, MEXICO (JULY 18, 2008) REUTERS -
The Mexican army on Friday (July 18) laid out more than 200 packages
of drugs, tightly wrapped in black plastic, on the dock where a submarine had
been hauled in.
    The military, working with information from U.S. intelligence services,
found nearly six tonnes of cocaine in the makeshift submarine seized this week
off the Pacific coast. 
    The 32-foot (10-metre)-long, green fiberglass craft was designed to
travel just beneath the water, leaving almost no wake. 
    It was one of Mexico's largest maritime drug seizures and the first
time the country has seen drug smugglers using a submarine, the navy said.

    U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, in Mexico to discuss
an aid package of more than $400 million to fight drug gangs, said the United
States had a minor role in the operation. 
    Four Colombians aboard the submarine said they had navigated up the
Pacific coast from Colombia. 
    Colombian officials told Reuters last month that diesel-powered drug
submarines travel up to two weeks to reach Central America and Mexico. The
drugs are then hauled overland into the United States. 
    Mexican special forces raided the submarine on Wednesday (July 16)
after they spotted it from the air by helicopter. They detained the crew and
brought them and the vessel back to the Pacific port of Salina Cruz in Oaxaca
state. 
    Vice Adm. Jose Maria Ortegon held a news conference in Salina Cruz
where he confirmed the seizure: 
    "There were 257 packages with an approximate weight of 22.6 kgs
and a total of 5,815 kgs approximately." 
    Ortegon said the submarine was built by a professional. 
    "We can't call it amateur because although it's made out of wood
and fibreglass it has certain engineering to have a built-in engine such as
the one it has, which is a six-cilinder cummins with a propelling machinery,
in other words, this was made by someone who knows about the sea."
    The government has made several huge drug seizures by deploying
thousands of troops to trafficking hot spots after President Felipe Calderon
took office in December 2006. 
    But drug trade specialists say troops and police are failing to tackle
drug gangs' financial networks and go after money launderers, which they say
would do more to weaken the cartels. 
    Some 1,700 people have been killed in drug gang violence in Mexico so
far this year, and Calderon's frontal assault has failed to stop attacks on
police and soldiers. 
    Drug hitmen shot and killed a policeman in his office in the northern
border city of Ciudad Juarez on Friday, the first time gunmen have penetrated
a police building to murder an official in the city, police said.