Submarine-like vessel transporting cocaine seized in Pacific

The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a submarine-like vessel in the Pacific ocean carrying more than 2 tons of cocaine.

The cocaine was seized Wednesday aboard "a type of submarine vessel" sailing off the coast of the Ecuadorean-owned Galapagos Islands, Gen. Alberto Gomez, the anti-narcotics police chief, told.

He said further details were not immediately available.

Separately, 2.5 tons of cocaine were discovered Wednesday hidden in the oil tanks of a ship docked in the Colombian Pacific port of Buenaventura, Adm. Jairo Pena, commander of Colombia's Pacific fleet, said in a statement. Eight suspects were arrested.

He said the cocaine was likely going to be taken to Central America from where it would be shipped on to the United States.

Colombian authorities have caught drug traffickers using subs on several occasions. They are usually small, fiberglass vessels that travel just below the surface. But in 2000, police on a raid of a warehouse near Bogota were stunned to find a 100-foot-long steel submarine being built to transport up to 150 tons of cocaine, the AP reports.