BBC
The Ecuadorean military says it has seized a 35m-long (115ft) “narco submarine” hidden in a nature reserve near the country’s border with Colombia.
The semi-submersible had been carrying 6,000 gallons (22,700 litres) of fuel and was ready to embark on “a long drug-smuggling voyage”, Ecuador’s ministry of defence said in a statement.
The discovery came shortly after Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa announced a “new phase” in his government’s war on drug cartels.
Sandwiched between Colombia and Peru – the world’s largest producers of cocaine – Ecuador has become a key country through which illicit drugs transit from South America to the US, Europe and as far as Australia.
Troops found the submarine in a mangrove swamp in the Cayapas–Mataje nature reserve.
They also found a camp nearby, which they said was being used by criminals as a logistics hub to prepare vessels for smuggling drugs.
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