- Photo courtesy of U.S. Customs ServiceUnited States Customs launches two go-fast boats to patrol southern Florida waters.
Lloyd Williams, Senior Associate Editor
THE PRIMARY method of smuggling large quantities of cocaine from Colombia through the Caribbean to the United States is by maritime vessels, bulk cargo freighters and containerised cargo ships, and, to a lesser extent, by single or twin-engine aircraft, international drug intelligence sources say.
Also, couriers transport smaller quantities of cocaine on commercial flights from the Caribbean to the USA by concealing small multi-kilogram quantities on their person or in luggage.
Some (increasingly so) smuggle small quantities of cocaine - up to one kilogram - by ingesting it - often with fatal consequences.
But go-fast boats have been pinpointed by drug intelligence experts as "the centre of gravity" of the cocaine trade from Colombia through Jamaica.
And with good reason.
These small, speedy, powerful launches are used to continually replenish the cocaine supply lines from Colombia through Jamaica to the United States and Europe.
They are reported to have first surfaced around 1995 when they began to replace airplanes as the main conveyances for moving cocaine and ganja (marijuana) from Colombia to wherever the lucrative demand attracted the traffickers. Their continued use is well-documented.
There is still some amount of cocaine smuggling using airplanes taking off from or landing on clandestine airstrips, or making airdrops in the sea or on land, but go-fast boats have maintained and have even been increasing their utility as the conveyances of choice.
Good reasons
And there are several reasons for this. They are cheaper to acquire and operate than airplanes. So much so that cocaine traffickers in computing their business transportation costs, routinely factor in go-fast boats as affordable "disposable platforms", even though some cost as much as US$250,000 each. The crews do not hesitate to abandon them when trouble threatens.
Besides, whereas the average twin-engine light plane which is favoured by drug traffickers can carry 500 to 700 kilograms of cocaine or marijuana, the load capacity of a go-fast boat can go up to 1,500 kilograms and more. Newer and bigger versions are said to be capable of carrying even larger payloads and with the capacity to range up to 1,300 miles.
The Interagency Assessment of Cocaine Movement (IACM), states that Haiti, while remaining a significant transshipment point, has been replaced by Jamaica as "the most active vector within the Caribbean transshipment zone".
According to the IACM, during 2000, approximately 11 per cent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States transited Jamaica and approximately nine per cent transited Haiti/Dominican Republic. (The percentage is believed to have increased since).
The assessment states that "non-commercial maritime methods, primarily go-fast vessels, was the principal methodology used to smuggle cocaine through both vectors."
Go-fast boats powered by high-performance outboard engines can make the trip from San Andres, Baranquilla or elsewhere in the north of Colombia to Jamaica and back, in less than a day.
In The Drug Trade in the Caribbean: A Threat Assessment, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration states that, although Cuba is not a major transit country for cocaine destined for the United States, "drug traffickers continue to use Cuban waters and airspace to evade U.S. interdiction assets. Go-fast boats from Jamaica routinely travel just inside Cuban waters to avoid contact with U.S. vessels".
Their operators know fully well that U.S. Coast Guard cutters will not enter Cuba's 12-mile territorial seas.
The U.S. Department of State's International Narcotics Control Strategy Report annually assesses each country's efforts to control its problem with narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. INCSR March 2002 states:
"Go-fast boats transport drugs directly from Colombia to Central America, Mexico and Caribbean countries. The go-fast boats hug the coastline as they move north to the secluded off-loading sites or transit directly to Caribbean islands that serve as transshipment points."
"Most of that cocaine flow arrives in The Bahamas by go-fast boats from Jamaica. There was an increase in 2001 in the number of airdrops by aircraft originating in Jamaica and Colombia to waiting Bahamian go-fast boats off the Cuban coast, but the number of detected airdrops remained small compared to the number of detected drug-smuggling operations involving go-fast vessels.
"The DEA and OPBAT (Operation Bahamas, Turks and Cacois) estimate that there are roughly a dozen major Bahamian drug trafficking organizations. They offer their services, often with 'money-back guarantees', to Jamaican drug cartels to transport their drugs to the United States. The Bahamian go-fast boats usually head north from Jamaica and travel through the Windward Passage, between Haiti and Cuba, into Bahamian waters. Later, these go-fast boats wait for an opportune time to dash from Bimini and Grand Bahama across to the east coast of south Florida to deliver their illicit cargo."
U.S. law enforcement agencies estimated two years ago that more than 400 go-fast boats make successful drug runs to the U.S. each year.
The number is believed to be higher now that homeland security in the USA is paying so much attention to air traffic.
Jamaica continues to be the leading transshipment point in the Caribbean for South American cocaine en route to the U.S. and INCSR 2002 quotes a senior Jamaican official as saying that the Government estimates that 70 to 100 tons of cocaine are transhipped through Jamaica each year.
According to INCSR 2002, the shipment of drugs by go-fast boats through the Bahamas, detected in 2001, declined by 32 per cent from 2000 (100 detections versus 146).
Detections
However, it attributes the decrease in detections, in part, to the withdrawal of U.S. Government detection and monitoring aircraft from The Bahamas for homeland defence in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
In November 2000, an operation by the Jamaica Constabulary, the Jamaica Defence Force and the U.S. Coast Guard led to the seizure of 740 kg (1,628 lb.) of cocaine in a 35-foot Colombian go-fast boat at Alligator Pond, Manchester, near the border with St. Elizabeth.
Over the last few years there have been numerous reports of go-fast boats making cocaine deliveries, running aground, or being sighted at Black River, Manchioneal, St. Margaret's Bay, Belmont, Yallahs, or Rocky Point and elsewhere on Jamaica's 1,022km (638) miles of coastline.
Go-fast boats usually set out under the cover of darkness loaded with cocaine from stash houses, clandestine airstrips or motherships or to ferry the drug to those locations.
They can easily out-manoeuvre and outrun almost any United States or Jamaica Defence Force Coast Guard cutters which attempt to intercept them to confiscate their illicit cargo. Typically 30 to 45 feet long with two or more engines, the go-fasts - whether their brand name is Cigarette, Wellcraft, Rabco, Scorpion or whatever - can race up to 70 knots while carrying up to 3,000 lb. of cocaine, compared with the slow, wheezing coast guard cutters which may be chasing them on the high seas at a top speed of 20 knots.
No identifying marks
These long, sleek boats with plastic or fibreglass hulls, the better to foil detection by surface-search radars, ride on top of the water. Their powerful engines propel them to speeds far faster than those of their coast guard cutter adversaries. They are slowed only by heavy seas.
The average size go-fast boat carries several barrels of fuel and lube oil and travels up to 700 miles at 25 knots and more.
According to maritime law enforcement experts, they have neither flags, numbers or other identifying features and are often painted the colour of the ocean to make it difficult to be spotted from the air.
Not all go-fast boats operating in and out of Jamaican waters ferry cocaine, although the island has been for the last several years, a major transit zone for Colombian cocaine bound for the United States or Europe.
Jamaica is also the largest producer and exporter of ganja (marijuana) in the Caribbean, and it remains "the only significant Caribbean source country for marijuana destined for the United States".
Rear Admiral Edward J. Barrett of the United States Navy, bears this out.
He testified on November 17, 1999 as Director of the Joint Interagency Task Force East, Key West, Florida, before the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources:
"In 1999, we began to detect go-fast boats departing Jamaica, transiting the Windward (Passage between Cuba and Hispaniola) for delivery of drugs to the Bahamas and Southeast United States. We have successfully interdicted many of these go-fast boats, and most have been marijuana shipments.
"This observed increase in the number of suspect go-fast is primarily due to increased operational presence in the Windward. Our intelligence assessment is that this volume of traffic has existed for many years, and we only see it because we are there looking".
Continues tomorrow
