WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- The U.S. Coast Guard has seized seven tons of cocaine and arrested four men after boarding their high-tech, semi-submersible vessel in the eastern Pacific.
The drugs, worth an estimated $8.4 million, were found on a 59-foot submarine-like ship located 350 miles west of Guatemala, CNN reported Monday.
A Coast Guard news release said the vessel's crew tried to prevent capture by throwing the engines abruptly into reverse while a Coast Guard team was attempting to board the vessel Saturday.
The vessel, equipped with advanced navigation and communications systems, can move beneath the surface of the water but is not able to submerge completely like a true submarine.
"They cost up to a million dollars to produce," says Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen. "They're very difficult to locate."
Allen told CNN he believes smugglers have turned to semi-subs in response to the Coast Guard's use of snipers in helicopters to shoot out the engines of smugglers' speedboats.
