COLOMBIA COPS FIND TRAFFICKING TOOL

FACATATIVA, Colombia - Police raiding a warehouse in this rural town
stumbled upon a most unusual drug trafficking tool: A 100-foot-long,
half-built submarine they say would have been able to ship up to 200 tons
of cocaine below the ocean's surface.

Colombian authorities displayed their find on Thursday, a day after they
discovered it along with documents in Russian in this town a half-hour's
drive outside Bogota. Police and journalists crawled through the snub-nosed
submarine's three unattached reddish metal sections and gazed in wonder at
its size and sophisticated design.

"It was between 30 and 40 percent completed and had its engine room ready,"
Colombian National Police director Gen. Ernesto Gilibert told reporters.
"The technology is advanced and the workmanship of high quality."

Colombian traffickers have used smaller, simpler "mini-subs" on at least
two occasions in the past, Gilibert said. But even seasoned anti-drug
officials said they were stunned by the vessel discovered here.

"In 32 years I've never seen anything like this," Leo Arreguin, the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration director in Colombia, told reporters.

"This is huge," he said. "We're talking about being able to load up to 200
tons of cocaine in this submarine."

The submarine's discovery marks a new chapter in innovation for Colombia's
ingenious drug cartels, which have previously used refitted commercial
airliners and oceangoing freighters to ship cocaine to the United States
and other parts of the world.

The simple brick warehouse, complete with closed-circuit television
monitors, was empty at the time of the raid.

It was strewn with workbenches, power-tools and gas canisters used for
welding. No-smoking signs hung on the walls. Tools left haphazardly on
shelves in the submarine's midsection suggested that workers had made a
hasty getaway.

Arreguin said documents discovered at the site indicate not only probable
Russian ties to the submarine but that two Americans may have also been
involved. He did not elaborate on the possible U.S. connection. No arrests
had been made.

Facatativa is in located roughly 7,500 feet above sea level in Colombia's
eastern Andean region.

"We think they were going to send it to the coast by truck in these three
sections," said National Police Sgt. Samuel Alvarez. "The computerized
navigation system was probably being built elsewhere."

Colombia exports 90 percent of the world's cocaine and is a growing heroin
supplier. Traffickers have become increasingly expert at getting the drugs
past intense air, sea and land interdiction efforts.