Navy tests new weapons in the war on drugs

On the flight deck of the HSV 2 Swift, U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Sinclair Harris received instructions Friday on how to launch the 13-pound drone that looks like a model airplane built by a teenager in the family garage.

“Raise it when we’re ready,” a civilian operator told the commander of the U.S. 4th Fleet. “It’s a piece of cake.”

Harris did as told, launching the Puma AE (all environment) — a waterproof, unmanned aircraft — into the vast blue yonder of the Florida Straits to track and provide real-time video of a go-fast boat in a mock drug smuggling operation. 

“So easy, even an admiral can do it,” Harris joked.

It was a test to see if the relatively low-cost drone, which runs on battery power, could be an alternative to manned aircraft such as the P-3 Orion, which requires a crew of seven and guzzles fuel.

The Navy is trying to get creative to continue its never-ending war on drugs during these tough economic times, in which its budget has been further squeezed by new mandatory cuts triggered by the recent federal sequester.

In March, the Navy announced the budget cuts were forcing it to stop the deployments of two of its frigates, the USS Gary and the USS Thach, that were patrolling the Caribbean and eastern Pacific for traffickers of drugs, people and guns.

“It’s the old saying attributed to Mr. [Winston] Churchill: ‘We’ve run out of money; it’s time to think,’ ” Harris said.

That’s why the 321-foot Swift also was carrying an unusual sight for a ship — a big white blimp that was moored next to the big X that marks the spot for helicopter landings.

This TIF-25K Tethered Aerostat had no markings on it because it was used for military operations in Afghanistan. But with the draw down of missions in that war, the military wants to find ways to repurpose the unmanned blimps that run on helium.

“We’ve only been at sea once before, and that was on a barge in one of the Great Lakes,” said Craig P. Laws, the U.S. Navy program manager for Raven Inc., the blimp’s private manufacturer based in South Dakota. “We used it for a scientific experiment, watching algae grow with a university. Flying from the flight deck of a Navy ship is new to us.”

While blimps and remote controlled airplanes have been around for decades; never before have they been combined for this sort of mission at sea. Part of the reason: the technology has greatly advanced (also becoming smaller and lighter) for the cameras, sensors and communication equipment they carry. “And obviously, necessity is the mother of invention,” Harris said.

It’s still a work in progress, but Harris is excited about the potential of the blimp and drone. Vessels like the Swift can increase its small boat detection capabilities from about five miles with its onboard radar, to 50 miles or so when the blimp and its F50 radar is raised to its maximum height of about 2,000 feet. The blimp also has a camera that can capture footage up to 15 miles away for big vessels.

And, weather permitting, the blimp can supply 24/7 monitoring. The P-3 must return within 10 hours for refueling and change of crews. The downside: there’s nobody armed in the blimp and drone that can force the smugglers to stop. 

 

The drones are sent out only after a suspicious vehicle has been identified. “It gives a god’s-eye view,” said Craig Benson, director of business development for California-based AeroVironment Inc., which makes the Puma AE. 

The Pumas can fly for about two hours and have the ability to sneak up on smugglers because they are quiet and look like birds, with a wingspan of nine feet. The hope is that its cameras will be able to capture evidence of smugglers trying to throw cocaine or marijuana overboard to avoid arrest and prosecution.

One Navy requirement of the Puma was for it to be able to land in salt water and float for four hours, Benson said.

That requirement was put to the test when the Puma came in for a landing on the flight deck Friday but sank quickly as it hit the exhaust gas thermal created by the ship. The remote control operator turned the plane sharply to the right to avoid hitting the large throng of media watching the demonstration. Gasps were heard as it crashed into the sea.

Harris shrugged. “The thing is going to float,” he said. And it did, retrieved more than 15 minutes later by the ship’s small boat. Another Puma was launched. Harris said he’d give the operator $1 if he landed it this time in the middle of the big X. And the operator did.

While the five- to seven-foot seas and winds of more than 20 knots forced the Coast Guard to call off a boarding demonstration, Harris said he was pleased at how the blimps radar and drone’s cameras tracked the Gotcha, a previously confiscated go-fast boat from a drug bust that was positioned offshore of Key West for Friday’s test.

The next step is to test the blimp and drone operationally in the southwestern Caribbean. This is being delayed a few days to “tweak some issues with the radar,” Harris said. “We’ve got to wait for the techs to arrive.”

If all goes well with the operational tests, Harris said the information will be passed up to “Big Navy,” who will decide if the blimp and drone will become part of its assets. The decision will be made in consultation with other agencies, including the Key West-based Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF), which oversees Operation Martillo for the United States. 

While many people see the war on drugs as a losing battle, Harris and other defenders say the efforts are paying off, particularly since the United States has partnered with Colombia, France, Canada, Britain, the Netherlands and several other countries in the joint Martillo mission. 

Martillo is Spanish for hammer. Since the operation began in January 2012, it has seized about 200 metric tons of cocaine and 25,000 pounds of marijuana — a street value of approximately $3 billion, as well as $3.5 million in drug money. More than 340 suspected smugglers also have been detained, according to Lt. Cmdr. Corey Barker, public affairs officer with the U.S. 4th Fleet.

While the Puma was being tested Friday, word reached the crew of the Swift that the Coast Guard was offloading at the Miami Beach base an estimated $27 million worth of cocaine seized from a 68-foot fishing boat cruising through the western Caribbean Sea — exactly where the Swift is going next to conduct three weeks of operational testing of the blimp and drone.

That seizure occurred April 18. Two days later, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine crew on a P-3 made an even bigger bust after spotting a speed boat carrying more than 3,300 pounds of pure cocaine with a street value of about $242 million in open waters off Panama.

The P-3 crew notified Panama, which sent three of its law enforcement boats to capture what turned out to be Colombian smugglers.

About 67 percent of all U.S.-involved drug busts in the Caribbean are now the result of multiple nations working together.

“That’s a big increase in what it used to be,” Harris said.

Harris also hopes the blimp and drones may be less expensive alternatives for countries in the partnership that can’t afford fixed-wing aircraft for surveillance, detection and monitoring. 

“I was just in Colombia talking about this very thing,” Harris said. “I showed them pictures on Facebook.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/27/3368548_p2/navy-tests-new-weapons-in-the.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/27/3368548/navy-tests-new-weapons-in-the.html#storylink=cpy

Russia to arm Nicaragua’s war on drugs

Moscow says it is ready to supply equipment and weapons to Nicaragua as the global fight against the scourge of drug production and smuggling continues.

Cooperation with the Central American country “comes down to the question of weapons, uniforms and police equipment,"Viktor Ivanov, head of the Federal Drug Control Service, told reporters following negotiations with Nicaraguan police chief Aminta Granera in Moscow.

Monday’s announcement signals the next chapter in Russian-Nicaraguan drug-fighting efforts.

In February, officials from both countries agreed to conduct joint operations against drug trafficking and establish a drug enforcement training center in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua.

The center trains law enforcement officers from all Latin American countries affected by the cocaine trade, Ivanov noted.

Granera said Nicaragua was grateful for the pledge of "specialized equipment [from Russia], which will strengthen the ability of Nicaraguan police to deter crime" related to the drug trade.

Russia is no stranger in the global war on drugs. Moscow is currently working with NATO to study ways of halting drug trafficking out of Afghanistan, the Central Asian country that has experienced a sharp increase of heroin production following the removal of the Taliban.

There are approximately 2 million drug addicts in Russia, while an estimated 100,000 Russian citizens die of drug-related illnesses each year, according to statistics from the Federal Drug Control Service.

Meanwhile, Russia is also interested in stability in Central and South America due to its business investments in the region.

Ivanov mentioned that Russia has already invested about $16 billion in energy projects in Venezuela.

"Russia is developing economic relations with Latin America, which is demonstrated by the the recent development of oil fields in Venezuela,” Ivanov said. “Our task is to improve the level of professionalism [among drug control officials] in order to protect our investments in that region from drug lords."

With relations strained between the United States and various Central and South American countries, including in Nicaragua and Venezuela, Russia has found space for political and economic development.

The Next Generation of Cocaine-Smuggling Drug Submarines

The latest models come with A/C, shark paint jobs and quick-scuttle technology to easily sink the ship (and the drugs inside them)

Sinking the Submarine The U.S. Coast Guard released this photo of a sinking self-propelled semi-submersible that U.S. and Honduran officials interdicted in north of Honduras on March 30, 2012. The splotch you can see on the sub was actually water on the photographer's lens. Courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

Drug smugglers will resort to any number of creative DIY solutions for bringing their illicit goods to the United States, from marijuana catapults to mega-tunnels. But a new fleet of diesel-powered, fully submersible narco-subs could be the bane of law enforcement’s existence.

Far from the rickety, barely-submerged metal husks first discovered a few years ago, the latest fiberglass models come equipped with air conditioning, shark paint jobs and quick-scuttle technology, to easily sink the ship and the drugs inside them. The subs would be “the envy of all but a few nations,” as the New York Times describes them.

Intelligence officials first heard of drug-smuggling subs in the 1990s, but the vessels didn’t start getting serious attention until 2006, in the eastern Pacific Ocean. In November of that year, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a semi-submersible they dubbed “Bigfoot,” because officials weren’t sure it existed until they saw it. Now, federal authorities have seized at least 25 such ships in the Pacific.

But new versions are cropping up in new locations. Drug submarines hadn’t been spotted in the Caribbean until August of last year, but now they are growing in number, according to the Times. There have been five interceptions in the Caribbean so far, according to the Coast Guard.

In a raid last August, Coast Guard officers intercepted 15,000 pounds of cocaine, worth $180 million, in a sub captured off the coast of Honduras — the first time a submarine was intercepted in the Caribbean. That was a semi-submersible model, made of fiberglass and wood and painted to blend in with the sea surface.

The government has since captured three newer, fully submersible models, which can haul 10 tons of cocaine and conceivably travel beneath the surface all the way from Ecuador to Los Angeles, according to the Times.

The semi-submersibles are typically a little less than 100 feet long, and can carry four or five crewmembers and up to 10 metric tons of drugs, the Coast Guard says. Officials estimate they’re very cheap to make, costing about $1 million and capable of moving $150 million to $180 million in cocaine per load, according to the Miami Herald.

Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the former U.S. drug czar and a SOCOM commander, told the Herald this spring that the first subs were far from advanced — he evoked memories of the Monitor and the Merrimack, the wooden subs from the American Civil War. “It was Colombian, they had two Russian engineers, probably just unemployed sub guys helping to design the thing,” McCaffrey told the newspaper. “I thought it was the silliest thing I ever heard of in my life.”

Nowadays, things are definitely different: The newer, more sophisticated subs are probably built by independent contractors, who more than likely would sell them to the highest bidder. This has counterterrorism officials worried, the Times says. The subs are built in the thick jungles of central America, where they would be hard to detect via aerial surveillance.

But sometimes they can be found in their drydock states. In 2010 Drug Enforcement Agency, the and the Ecuadoran military seized a submarine that had been built and hidden in the jungle. That twin-screw, diesel electric-powered sub was about nine feet high from the deck to the ceiling, according to the DEA. It was about 30 meters (98 feet) long and described as “sophisticated,” even containing its own air conditioning system. That sub never set sail, but the discovery in Honduras pointed to a potential Caribbean fleet. Now it sounds like a growing trend.

Drug Submarine: This narco-sub was seized in Ecuador in 2010, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. 

Mexico - Fracked At The Border

A recent U.S. government study concluded that using the Mexican military in the Cartel War as a substitute for inadequate or incapable police forces has been a limited success. The report also said that Mexico has made headway in its attack on the leadership of organized criminal syndicates. The report asserted that the reliance of military forces, however, led to more atrocities. While a majority of Mexican citizens back government efforts to combat crime, a majority also doubts that drug violence can be quelled. The people, and the U.S. report, also believe that corruption plagues the Mexican police forces and judiciary. All this leads back to square one. Corruption in police forces and ineffectiveness were the primary reasons President Felipe Calderon’s government decided to use the military when it launched the Cartel War in December 2006.

July 25, 2012: The U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission recommend that the U.S. build border fences in a flood plain area along the Rio Grande River. The project could involve 14 miles worth of fencing. Mexico opposes the recommendation. The flood plain area is near the Texas towns of Rio Grande City and Roma.

July 24, 2012: Eight people were murdered in drug gang violence the city of Monterrey (Nuevo Leon state). Seven of the victims were taxi drivers. Police reported cartel gunmen in vehicles attacked the drivers using large-caliber weapons.

Gunmen murdered three men in a hotel in the town of Cocula (Jalisco state). Investigators believe the attack was drug cartel related.

July 22, 2012: Some 50 gunmen attacked the mayor’s office and the police station in the town of Vista Hermosa (Michoacan state). The town has a population of around 10,000. The gunmen killed five people, including three policemen and the town’s director of public security. The gunmen arrived in trucks, sealed off the town, then attacked. The government said the cartel gunmen wanted to show how strong they are in the area. The local police were completely out-manned and out-gunned. The Mexican Army has now moved troops to the town.

July 16, 2012: Fracking techniques and other enhanced recovery methods have opened up new oil and gas resources in the United States. They have also, indirectly, opened up new smuggling routes for Mexican drug cartels. U.S. security officials and Texas police forces have reported that drug smugglers are making use of a new network of roads built to service natural gas drilling rigs in South Texas. U.S. oil and gas companies are drilling in the Eagle Ford shale formation, near the Texas-Mexico border. The new service roads are for the most part dirt roads, but they are in areas that were previously brush country, cut by jeep trails and little else. For years the U.S. Border Patrol has used a chokepoint strategy for siting checkpoints on highways or rural farm roads that heavy vehicles had to use if they were carrying goods (or contraband) north. Side roads would run in and out of ranches but eventually these side roads returned to the north-south paved road network. The new roads, however, can be used to by-pass the chokepoints. The drilling boom has created other opportunities for cartel subterfuge. Though there is no official report (yet) that they have done so, law enforcement agencies know that the drug cartels can disguise their vehicles to look like oil and gas drilling vehicles or service vehicles. The cartels can also steal and use legitimate oil and gas company vehicles. All of this makes the inspection and enforcement job of the Border Patrol and other police forces that much harder. A law enforcement group in Texas also reported that its members are concerned that drug traffickers might try to bribe oil and gas service workers. Here is one scenario. The cartels bring drugs across the border, stash the drugs in a hiding place in the brush country (near a drilling site), and then the crooked truck drivers would pick up and deliver the drugs to cities in Texas, the southwest, or the Midwest (essentially the Interstate 35 corridor route). (Austin Bay)

July 16, 2012: Police arrested one man who is suspected of being involved in the July 13 attack on a Christian group camping near Mexico City. The attackers raped several women.

July 15, 2012: Mexican security officers arrested one of the corrupt police officers involved in the June 25, murder of senior federal police officers. The rogue officer was hiding in an apartment in Mexico City.

July 13, 2012: A dozen heavily armed men attacked a Christian youth camp-out in a park located near Mexico City. Seven young women were raped by the attackers. The attackers robbed the camp, assaulted several other campers, and then stole two vehicles. Officials said the attack went on for several hours.

Mexican investigators reported that they raided a warehouse and discovered sacks of food, farm goods, and implements that are allegedly part of a vote-buying scheme linked to the July 1, presidential election. The food included sacks of oats and beans. The food was allegedly traded for votes by local government officials, The Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) alleges that the winning party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), violated election laws and bought the election.

July 13, 2012: Police in Cancun arrested one of America’s most-wanted fugitives. Vincent Legrend Walters had been in hiding for 24 years. He was wanted on murder and kidnapping charges. Apparently he was working at the Cancun airport. Walters will be extradited to the U.S. July 12, 2012. A newspaper in Nuevo Laredo (Tamaulipas state, across the border from Laredo, Texas) said that it will no longer report on violent disputes between drug gangs. The newspaper, El Manana, has suffered two grenade attacks on its offices. Media in Texas have noted that several Mexican newspapers have curtailed their reporting on drug violence because the cartels have physically threatened their employees. Nuevo Laredo has been the scene of an on-going war between Los Zetas cartel and the Gulf cartel. The gangsters do not want media reporting on their crimes.

July 11, 2012: The Mexican Army reported that murders by crime gangs in Ciudad Juarez fell by 42 percent in the first six months of 2012. While 952 gang-related murders occurred in the first six months of 2012, 1,642 occurred in the first six months of 2011. Authorities attribute the decline to military and police efforts to weaken the Juarez cartel and the Gente Nueva criminal organization. The Sinaloa cartel is allied with the Gente Nueva gang.

July 9, 2012: The U.S. is investigating an incident where a U.S. Border Patrol agent reportedly fired at a gunman on the Rio Grande River. A Mexican boy may have been hit by the Border Patrol agent’s bullet. The incident occurred July 7, near a border crossing between Matamoros and Brownsville, Texas.

Mexican election authorities reported that the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) will likely have 62 seats in Mexico’s Senate. Mexico has 128 senators, so that is three seats short of a majority.

Seven police officers and four gunmen were killed in a firefight in Sinaloa state. The firefight occurred near the town of Choix. Sinaloa’s governor had announced earlier this month that Mexican federal police were assuming security duties in Choix. Choix’s local police chief was murdered June 29. The Mexican Army fought a battle with members of the Beltran Leyva cartel in Choix in May.

July 7, 2012: President-elect Enrique Pena said that he will revive Mexico’s oil industry. The incoming president said that modernizing Mexico’s national oil company, PEMEX, was a priority issue.

July 6, 2012: A retired Colombian police commander, General Oscar Naranjo, will be advising in-coming president Enrique Pena on counter-crime issues. Naranjo advocates creating elite police strike units to target senior cartel leaders and lower-level gunmen (cartel enforcers). Attacking the gunmen provides more immediate protection for citizens. Local gangs would also be targeted. Naranjo contends this worked in Colombia and will also work in Mexico.

Ignorance & Stupidity from the Mad Mullah Republic of Iran

According to the senior Iranian official the fact that no Zionist drug addicts exists is proof that of Zionist 'involvement in drugs trade.'

Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi delivered a highly anti-Semitic speech at an event marking International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Teheran on Tuesday. Rahimi declared that drug abuse around the world is rooted in the teachings of the Talmud, the semi-official Iranian news agency FARS reported.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will pay for anybody who can research and find one single Zionist who is an addict. They do not exist. This is the proof of their involvement in drugs trade.”

He went on to blame “Zionists and Jews” for involvement in other alleged conspiracies, including the Russian Revolution and ordering the killing of black babies.

Rahimi continued to say that the Talmud teaches Jews "how to destroy non-Jews so as to protect an embryo in the womb of a Jewish mother."

"The Anti-Defamation League called on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon "to speak out and to make clear that these views are not only objectionable, but repugnant to the entire international community."

"Here is yet another example of the fact that anti-Semitism is a pillar of the Mullahocracy in Tehran," charged Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, adding, "on a day when nations are supposed to set aside their differences to combat illegal drugs, the Iranian regime continues to malign the Jewish people and its religious traditions — all part of their ongoing campaign of demonizing the Jewish people and dehumanizing supporters of the Jewish state."