Swamp ThingON TV: Cocaine Sub Hunt premieres at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Sunday, June 26, on the National Geographic Channel.A recently discovered drug-smuggling submarine lies half submerged, deep in a mangrove swamp in Colombia. The diesel vehicle is the first fully submersible drug sub ever to be captured by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the South American country.(Also see "Cocaine Submarine Pictures: New Seizure Shows Advances.")The hundred-foot-long (30-meter-long) fiberglass sub can carry a crew of six underwater for more than a week, dive some 30 feet (9 meters) below the surface, and ferry about eight tons of drugs worth an estimated quarter of a billion U.S. dollars."That's a far greater payload than a speedboat can transport and certainly more than a human drug mule can carry in their stomach," said Steven Hoggard, the writer and director of a new National Geographic Channel documentary detailing the DEA agents' hunt for the sub. (The Channel is part-owned by the National Geographic Society, which owns National Geographic News.)(Related: Get cocaine-submarine pictures and facts from the National Geographic Channel.)—Ker Than
Photograph courtesy Carlos Hernandez, National Geographic Channel

Pictures: First True Cocaine Submarine

See the first fully submersible drug sub captured by the U.S. in Colombia—a swamp-built vehicle that can carry six underwater for a week.

June 25, 2011