Crane Wants Details on Countering Cartel Activity on Coasts

Representative Eli Crane (R-AZ) pressed for answers on the latest efforts and developments in countering cartel activity along the coasts in a recent House Homeland Security Committee hearing.

"Last year, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a narco-submarine in the Caribbean Sea, seizing over 1,200 pounds of cocaine valued at more than $54 million," Rep. Crane began, referencing the September incident. "This semi-submersible vessel, designed to evade detection, is a stark reminder of the emerging, sophisticated methods employed by drug cartels to infiltrate our border."

Rep. Crane asked Rear Admiral Adam Chamie of the Coast Guard how many of these vessels have been encountered in the past five years and where the cartels get them from.

Chamie could not give the numbers immediately but replied that "the transnational criminal organizations get more sophisticated in the ways that they will try to smuggle drugs, so they use a variety of vessels, and one of those, as you said, is to use a submarine."

Additionally, Chamie said these narco-subs are built by the cartels on their own.

The Arizona Congressman then asked, "Have you seen the cartels utilizing drones, either sub-surface or aerial drones, out at sea?"

The Rear Admiral said that while he personally has not witnessed drones, the Coast Guard is aware of their use by transnational criminal organizations on land and at sea.

"What new technologies, unmanned underwater vehicles, sonar nets, or satellite tracking are being deployed to detect these types of narco-submarines before they make it to our shores?" Crane then asked.

Chamie said the Coast Guard is "using a couple of different types of technologies right now" to counter maritime smuggling, including unmanned aircraft and the V-BAT, an aerial reconnaissance system.

The Arizona Congressman then turned to the Executive Assistant Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection's Air and Marine Operations, Jonathan Miller, asking, "Do you believe what you are seeing with the increase in maritime interdiction is due to the adaptation of smuggling routes by the cartels to circumvent the work that this administration has done to secure our southern border?"

Miller affirmed, saying, "We have certainly seen that in the Southern California [Area of Responsibility], where we have seen the biggest surge in maritime migrant smuggling activity, and we suspect that it is primarily due to the difficulty of being smuggled across the land border."