DRUG SMUGGLERS USE GPS TO OUTWIT POLICE

Drug smugglers are using sophisticated devices like satellite
positioning systems to outwit police and move more South American
cocaine by sea, a senior U. S. official said on Thursday.

Traffickers who used to fill speedboats with tanks of fuel to power
long, clandestine sea journeys, leaving less room for drugs, are now
fitting them with Global Positioning Systems so they can meet up with
refuelling ships at sea.

Using GPS devices to hook up with a waiting ship loaded with fuel
means a much bigger stash of drugs can be packed on the boats, said
Perry Holloway, director of anti-drug operations at the U. S. Embassy
in Colombia.

"It's one of the main tools for drug traffickers because before they
needed to pack much more fuel than cocaine but now they can calculate
exactly," Holloway, in Guatemala for talks with local officials on
fighting drug cartels, told a news conference.

A large chunk of the roughly 1,000 tonnes of cocaine grown and
processed annually in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru is believed to pass
though Central America, from where it is moved to U.S. consumers
overland or in small boats or planes.

Guatemala's government is grappling with an influx of Mexican and
Colombian drug gangs operating in the country.

Drug cartels opting for sea routes use an array of innovative methods
such as hiding drugs in secret compartments in fishing boats beneath
huge stacks of nets and catch, or sailing hundreds of kilo-metres off
course to fool authorities.

More recently, cartels have begun using homemade submarines that float
invisibly just below the surface of the water. "It's a new phenomenon.
We are catching more semi-submersibles. They appear 10 centimetres
above the water and they're very difficult to find,"Holloway said.

The subs are also equipped with GPS and use the same mid-ocean
refuelling methods, allowing them to travel from Colombia to the U. S.
non-stop.

- - Reuters