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Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna

france24.com

131–140 of 187 posts

Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna

#131

I'm kind of curious how much this matters to Colombia now. For this who haven't been following the drug wars, most of the action, and money, has moved to Mexico. If you only know this stuff through pop culture, Mexico today is what Colombia was in the 80's and 90's: the violence, level of corruption, money flowing through, etc.

Colombia is the main producer of illegal cocaine, responsible for 70 to 80 percent of the world's supply. It is the largest producer in the world.

Colombia produces the raw materials, so it is "essential" in that sense, but that is not where the money and power is now (that's Mexico). Kind of like how your iPhone is manufactured in China, but the world's-richest-company status goes to Apple, in the US.

Quoting an AI summary (because I'm looking for a quick answer here):

Mexico has become the primary financial beneficiary of cocaine money today. Mexican cartels now control the most lucrative parts of the supply chain - smuggling into the US market and wholesale distribution. They've essentially become the "middlemen" who buy cocaine from Colombian producers at relatively low prices and then sell it in the US at much higher prices, capturing most of the profit margin.

Colombia remains important as a producer of coca and cocaine, but the economics have changed dramatically. Colombian groups now often function more as suppliers to Mexican cartels rather than controlling the entire supply chain themselves. The raw materials and initial processing generate far less revenue than the final distribution stages.

Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna

#132

I'm kind of curious how much this matters to Colombia now. For this who haven't been following the drug wars, most of the action, and money, has moved to Mexico. If you only know this stuff through pop culture, Mexico today is what Colombia was in the 80's and 90's: the violence, level of corruption, money flowing through, etc.

Cocaine is still produced overwhelmingly in South America. Yes, it does have to go through Mexico. But the start of the trade route is Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru.

It's important from a supply chain perspective, but not in the getting-rich-off-of-this sense anymore. The analogy I use is Apple in the USA (Mexico) and Foxconn in China (Colombia).

Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna

#133
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think weapon production is in their wheelhouse. Arms dealing maybe but not manufacturing. Facilities like those are permanent locations. Permanent locations tend to get raided and attacked. I think controlling municipalities like they are is working fine for them. No need to mass produce weapons when you can just buy them.

Where do you think this submersible was manufactured?

Building a couple of small boats isn't the same as mass producing weapons. I can build cars in my garage, but I'd need a machine shop full of extremely heavy equipment and tons of metal stock to build guns.

Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna

#134
post #120

Why not make a solar-electric narcosub? That way you don't need fuel, and you're not relying on an IC engine with a bunch of moving parts, and that has a heat signature. The sun is shining in the ocean that these cartels are sailing in anyway, so there should be power. Steer with GPS, that way you are only listening. I wouldn't rely on Starlink, it seems like something that could be discovered easily. Any authority t…

Because solar panel math doesn't work. It's the same reason it makes no sense to put solar panels on a car: the solar panels would add minutes of driving daily. You would need massive area of solar panels to power a sub which is obviously not workable if you want to be stealthy.

RCTestFlight begs to differ:

> 72hrs On My Unlimited Range Solar Boat > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc2PFExZXas

Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this one got caught. ;) This seems difficult. Even with two Starlinks: one to control it in Colombia, and one to control it at the destination coast, killing power to each. And make it autonomous on the way. This leaves the problem that there is a sudden (dis-)appearance of the link at sea, which might still make you light up like a lighthouse in analysis. However, it would seem cartels could use a cubesat and m…

One cubesat launched as a rideshare payload wouldn't cut it. Those typically get dropped off in a highly inclined low earth orbit -- around the world, roughly pole to pole, in 90 minutes. Any given satellite in that sort of orbit will only be useful to a ground station when it has line-of-sight for maybe 5-10 minutes every few days. At the very least you'd need a few dozen. Iridium manages to get coverage from 66. Th…

Isn't iridium way higher, though? At LEO geometry is not your friend.

Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna

#136
post #45

"The vessel was not carrying drugs" Why wouldn't they track it and wait until it rendezvoused with people they could arrest? Also, today I learned it's illegal to operate a semi-submersible in Colombia.

Perhaps because they watched it long enough to know that it is not going to rendezvous with anyone, and if they wait longer it may turn around and they will lose sight of it?

It very well might have a camera--they knew they had been seen and couldn't just tail it.

Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they do, the cartels already own huge man & firepower. They will just move on to the next thing, maybe coffee, avocados, oil whatever. When you have accumulated so much power you can demand cash from the world around you.

Coffee, avocados, and oil aren't illegal. But I'm pretty sure if you banned coffee it would spawn criminal gangs that made 1920s prohibition look tame. There's no substitute for the margins you can get in the illegal drug trade. Take away the primary source of funding and you make it much easier to break the gangs. We've already gone through this. Just legalize it already.

Wasn't that same argument used for legalizing cannabis? How did that work out?

Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna

#138

Just legalize it already. This is stupid.

Even if they do, the cartels already own huge man & firepower. They will just move on to the next thing, maybe coffee, avocados, oil whatever. When you have accumulated so much power you can demand cash from the world around you.

Exactly. These cartels are basically competing governments. They're in the drugs industry in the same way that there's state oil industries. The only choose crime because that activity has to exist outside the existing government system.

Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coffee, avocados, and oil aren't illegal. But I'm pretty sure if you banned coffee it would spawn criminal gangs that made 1920s prohibition look tame. There's no substitute for the margins you can get in the illegal drug trade. Take away the primary source of funding and you make it much easier to break the gangs. We've already gone through this. Just legalize it already.

They could set a 1000% tax on the coffee produced, if they can consolidate control. Latin America is 50% of the world coffee production. What will Starbucks / Nestle do? They will just pay up. They can even go against the families of the execs to make their case about the new price.

>They could set a 1000% tax on the coffee produced.

No they couldn't. That'd just mint another cartel run black market that they don't control and that cartel would tax the black market coffee at substantially less.

You can kind of think of the current drugs situation as a "so big the number doesn't matter, it's a non stater" percent tax.

Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opioid epidemic is not a great example, as it began by overprescription of legal, regulated medicinal drugs. The problem blew up when authorities started cracking down on those prescriptions, and the newly dependent started seeking drugs from illegal sources. Those sources included clandestinely produced heroin and fentanyl, leading to massive numbers of overdose deaths. In other words, it was the enforcement of…

That's quite some wall of one insane libertarian take after another that it's impossible to keep up. Regulating drugs isn't the same thing as turning into a police state. > The opioid epidemic is not a great example You think the issue of regulating heroin and fentanyl is comparable to alcohol prohibition, but not the opioid epidemic? > The problem blew up when authorities started cracking down on those prescriptions…

Thank you for the strawmen. I will burn them at Christmas.

Do you really think ”legal” means unregulated? That, if something, is a libertarian viewpoint.

Think about how many regulations you need to fulfill to be able to legally build a house, or employ a person. Are those things completely unregulated? How about the fuel you purchase at a gas station? Ever get only water or nitromethane instead of unleaded gas? Of course you haven’t, because you are buying a legal, regulated product.

Making drugs legal would make it possible to enforce standards of quality, labeling, age limits, et cetera before the products ever got to market.

By making drugs illegal, the society has abandoned all those controls and replaced them with the threat of violence: enforcement of behavior instead of enforcement of regulations.

That does not sound like freedom to me.

(Please don’t start arguing that murder also needs to be legalized, we both know that is not what I’m arguing for.)

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