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The Irish Naval Service has been warned by a senior EU official that it is facing a “game changer” in drug trafficking with the cartels using “narco-submarines” to transport narcotics to Europe.
Michael O’Sullivan said that Europe’s first discovery of semi-submersibles, sent across the Atlantic by South American drug lords, also poses a security threat with the potential that terrorists could use the ships to transport and deploy explosives. .
As the He has documented in recent months, a manpower crisis affecting the naval service has caused several ships to be unable to go out on patrol.
O’Sullivan, executive director of the EU Maritime Operations and Analysis Center – Narcotics (MAOC-N) said Europe will “fly blind” if the Irish Naval Service and Air Corps do not deploy their ships and aircraft to track glasses.
MAOC-N is made up of seven EU member states, including Ireland, and targets the transport of drugs, mainly cocaine and cannabis, across the Atlantic and into Europe.
O’Sullivan, a former assistant Garda commissioner, has briefed middle and senior officers in the naval service here about the threats.
“In particular, I talked about the new game changer, which is semi-submersibles,” he said.
“When you have guys who put 3.3 tons of cocaine on a boat they built in the Amazon jungle and sail it across the Atlantic for 22 days with three men on board and they reach the coast of Galicia. [Spain] – that’s a game changer ”.
He was referring to the first seizure of a semi-submersible in Europe. The so-called narco submarine, more than 20 meters long, had problems and the crew decided to sink it. The massive cocaine shipment was intercepted.
“It’s the first time one of those boats has been found on this side of the Atlantic, and that opens up a whole new ball court,” O’Sullivan said.
“People said for years that it couldn’t be done, that it was physically impossible. This is a concern, a huge concern for drug shipments, and it also has to be a safety concern. If you pack your submersibles with explosives, you could drop them on a cruise ship or in a port.
“It is quite an alarming development from a security perspective. When organized crime is involved, people take notice: people motivated by drug shipments, people motivated by terrorism. They see new trends and new ways of moving and doing things. ”
He said the Irish Naval Service and the Air Corps are “absolutely essential” in stopping the threat of drug smuggling in Europe.
“They are the forgotten heroes because many of the ships that were taken out were because the Irish Navy and Air Corps tracked them down and provided intelligence to the countries that made the actual seizure.”
O’Sullivan said that Irish waters stretch for hundreds of kilometers: “A ship could be far to the southwest of Ireland heading towards Europe and the Irish Navy is the first to be in a position to pick them up. If we can’t take out an Irish asset, we don’t know where they are, so you need that Irish asset. If you do not have the resources of the Navy, we are lost, because Ireland is very important strategically. “
He said that despite Covid-19 restrictions, the drug trade continues to boom. Figures from MAOC show that at least 23 vessels have been intercepted to date this year, resulting in the seizure of 13 tons of cocaine and 47 tons of hashish, with an estimated value of 2 billion euros.
“You would think that with Covid, there would be less drugs and less money and less traffic, well, there are a lot of drugs and ships. The cartels are thinking that Europe is in crisis, they will not be able to mobilize. Sometimes they have increased the number of boats ”.
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