DRUG-LADEN go-fast boats are so called because of their incomparable speed and ability to manoeuvre which enable them to outrun easily, other boats which are not similarly powered.
For this reason, maritime law enforcement agencies have difficulty bringing them to book.
They are the centrepiece of the lucrative illicit industry of smuggling cocaine from Colombia and elsewhere in South America, through Jamaica to the Bahamas and from there to the United States and Europe.
They make the 300-mile cocaine run from the north of Colombia to Jamaica and back, within a day, keeping the international demand for the drug well supplied. Also, according to international drug intelligence sources, they come here from The Bahamas every so often to pick up cocaine and or ganja for distribution to the southern United States or elsewhere. And heaven knows what other contraband they bring into Jamaica.
Go fast-boats, known as "pangas" in Colombia, are really powerful sea-going launches, virtually custom-made for the drug trade. In plying their trade, they violate the sovereignty of Jamaica's 12-mile territorial seas at will.
The loads of cocaine that these boats bring in or pick up, are stored in stash houses protected by ruthless, violent men with assault rifles, submachine guns, machine pistols and powerful handguns usually brought in by the go-fast boats along with the cocaine. Drug traffickers protect their million-dollar illicit ware not so much against the security forces - at least not yet - as against rival drug gangs.
Reports that the Jamaica Defence Force Coast Guard will soon be acquiring its own go-fast boats is indeed good news; it would be even better were the resources available to acquire helicopter gunships to chase the boats.
The time has come for the Jamaican Government to go one step further in its effort to chase the Colombian and other drug traffickers and their cohorts out of town. It needs to consider making Jamaica's 12-mile territorial waters off limits to go-fast boats other than those operated by the island's maritime allies.
Normally, the go-fast boats running cocaine and guns operate without flags, numbers, or identification of any kind. But once the news gets out that Jamaican waters are a no-sail zone for go-fast boats, drug smugglers would know that they violate the ban at the risk of being blasted out of the water. In the face of this real and present danger from the JDF Coast Guard, the drug traffickers would then be forced to take their nefarious business elsewhere.
