Narcosubmarines Outlaw Innovation and Maritime Interdiction in the War on Drugs

Javier Guerrero C. Narcosubmarines Javier Guerrero C. Narcosubmarines

Outlaw Innovation and Maritime Interdiction in the War on Drugs Javier Guerrero C. School of Arts and Humanities Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano Medellín, Colombia

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The title of this book by Javier Guerrero seems to tell you everything you need to know about what is inside. Indeed the most immediate objective of Narcosubmarines: Outlaw Innovation and Maritime Interdiction in the War on Drugs is to contribute to a richer and more effective understanding of drug smuggling in twenty-first century Colombia and the attempts of law enforcement agencies (LEAs) to combat them. The study starts by tracking the arms race between drug smugglers and the Navy in the waters between Colombia—a contest around speed of ‘go-fast boats’ and patrol boats gave way to another, a struggle around detectability culminating in the development of increasingly sophisticated ‘narcosubmarines’ and ‘narco-torpedos’ which held out the promise of evading interdiction. The initial focus on these highly visible instances of ‘outlaw innovation’ paved the way for a detailed ethnographic study that has yielded an extremely rich account of the strategy and tactics adopted by smugglers and law enforcement agencies. This work provides an important empirical contribution to our understanding of drug smuggling and more generally to security studies. This is per se valuable. And the empirical richness reflects the recent ‘turn to practice’ in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and related social science traditions—inspired by the success of ethnographic methods. But what else does an STS perspective bring to our understandings? A distinctive feature of the rapidly developing body of STS scholarship is the pursuit of critical insights from combination of intense empirical study with a strongly reflexive stance that insists upon questioning the conceptual framing of an investigation and offers strategic guidance about

v vi FOREWORD the methodological choices made and considers their consequences for the knowledge that is produced. These questions have particular salience for security studies which are perhaps of necessity characterised by marked asymmetries of access to particular actors and locales. Researchers strive to meet norms of impartiality and produce robust and defensible accounts. However, there is no ‘view from nowhere’ (Suchman, 2002).1 STS scholars therefore stress the need to consider the positionality of the actor (and by the same token the positionality of the analyst): how the actors’ or analyst’s ‘viewpoint’ (Kaniadakis, 2006),2 their point of insertion (or research access) to a social process, their intellectual equipment and their commitments may shape what knowledge can be produced. These issues are particularly significant in relation to studies of the contested terrains of criminality and security in which law enforcement agencies as much as their illicit adversaries may work hard to protect the secrecy of individual identities, settings, and activities undertaken. In such contexts of markedly uneven visibility, actors (and analysts) may be tempted to extrapolate from existing perceptions to fill gaps in knowledge and understanding. Such metaphorical extension from known settings has obvious risks, particularly in fragmented, turbulent, and changing settings. Here STS analysts have considered the metaphors deployed by actors and by analysts (Jordan & Taylor, 1998).3 Guerrero highlights the unhelpful consequences of attempts to project particular templates onto Drug Smuggling Organisations—as mafia or cartels revolving around quasi-military or corporate centralised managerial structures—which fail to capture the entrepreneurial features of drug smugglers taking devolved initiatives in a high risk, high reward market. We must resist the tempta- tion of simplistic portrayals of the two sides as mirroring the other. Guerrero shows how, partly in reaction against such portrayals, two analytical metaphors have become widespread in studies of smuggling, analysed (1) in terms of the formation of criminal networks or (2) in terms

1 Suchman, L. (2002). ‘Located Accountabilities in Technology Production’, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University. http://www.comp.lancaster.ac.uk/sociology/soc039ls. html 2 Kaniadakis, A. (2006). The Agora of Techno–Organisational Change. Unpublished PhD thesis, Research Centre for Social Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Scotland. 3 Jordan, T., & Taylor, P. (1998). A Sociology of Hackers. The Sociological Review, 46(4), 757–780. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.00139 FOREWORD vii of a co-evolution process—a competition between the interdiction activities of LEAs and the continued efforts at evasion by drug smugglers. Here the Guerrero’s detailed study allows us to go beyond accounts of an arms race driven simply by binary competition between two sides. He shows us that ‘there is more going on than just a race between the two sides, something that neither current studies of criminal networks nor theories of coevolution thoroughly explain’ (Chap. 1, p. 4). In particular, through detailed study of interdiction activities, Guerrero shows that Maritime Interdiction Organisations do not ‘simply respond to smugglers’ threats; organizational politics also shape this organisation. Furthermore, smugglers do not only seek to overcome LEAs’ capabilities but to compete with other groups’ (Chap. 1, pp. 3–4). By capturing the dynamics of the interplay between LEAs and smugglers, Guerrero proposes a more nuanced interpretation of this co-evolutionary process using the metaphor of the Red Queen, (drawing on Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There), who must always run as fast as she can just to stay in the same place. The detailed picture of the everyday practices of smuggling and interdiction that Guerrero has produced calls into question widespread unbalanced accounts which, for example, juxtapose the flexibility of traffickers with portrayals of law enforcement agencies as inflexible bureaucracies. These static and stereotypical binary accounts fail to capture the processes of learning by both sides. Highlighting in particular learning processes in the course of everyday smuggling and interdiction activities, Guerrero suggests we might understand these more effectively as processes of dispersed peer innovation. This concept was coined by Hyysalo and Usenyuk (2015)4 in their study of Karakats—all-terrain vehicles in the Arctic built and maintained by their users. Guerrero identifies important homologies with smugglers and law enforcement agents in remote locales—whether deep in the jungle or on the high seas—who need to exercise considerable ingenuity, drawing on locally available resources to meet potentially severe local challenges. He proposes that ‘The concept of dispersed peer innovation provides a handy tool to clarify the production of technologies in the WoD’ (Chap. 1, p. 5). Guerrero in short argues for more nuanced use of metaphors for understanding the co-evolution of evasion and interdiction—by analogy with

4 Hyysalo, S., & Usenyuk, S. (2015). The user dominated technology era: Dynamics of dispersed peer-innovation. Research Policy, 44(3), 560–576. viii FOREWORD

Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen metaphor underlining the struggle between two sides who are ‘continually upgrading their strategies, not only as a response to the other side’s actions but as a way to stay in the game’ (Chap. 1, p. 7). He sees value in the use of metaphors as tools for clarifica- tion, citing Geels’ (2005, p. 61)5 observation that co-evolution is often used as ‘a reminder to disciplinary scholars that more aspects are important than they actually study’ (Geels, 2005, p. 61). Others have been more cautious. Discussing the widely adopted STS terminology of ‘mutual adaptation’, Hyysalo, Pollock and Williams (2018, p. 12)6 warn that such ‘generic conceptualisations may be argued to act as what could be called “cloaking metaphors” in that they flag the need to get inside the process, but are used as a promissory substitute for this analysis’. Their Biography of Artefacts and Practices (BOAP) perspective proposes the extension of empirical research, to avoid the need to extrapolate to cover gaps in our understanding by tracking processes across multiple settings and view- points and over extended durations. More robust understandings can be achieved both through more intensive study within particular nexuses of action and through wider excursions into adjacent settings. Rather than espousing particular research designs (e.g., notwithstanding STS’s widely adopted default methodology of organisational ethnographies), BOAP argue for critical reflection on the research design choices and their implications for the adequacy of the evidence base in relation to the matters under investigation. There are no methodological guarantees and simply expanding the volume of empirical findings does not resolve uncertainty about findings. Instead the adequacy of methodology needs to be argued in relation to the particular issues and contexts studied. Guerrero’s investigation helpfully locates his contemporary study of interdiction/evasion within a broader historical account of the strategies of drug smugglers and law enforcement agencies. There would be attractive opportunities to extend this important study into a BOAP investigation by adding com- parative studies of smuggling/interdiction in adjacent regions and longi- tudinal studies of their further evolution.

5 Geels, F. W. (2005). Technological Transitions and System Innovations. Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. 6 Hyysalo, S., Pollock, N., & Williams, R. (2018). Method matters in the social study of technology: Investigating the biographies of artifacts and practices. Science & Technology Studies. FOREWORD ix

Finally, we note that Guerrero makes some telling observations about the role of secrecy and ignorance in security and the interdiction/evasion binary. It might be seen as an early contribution to the emerging field of agnotology (Schiebinger & Proctor, 2008).7 This perspective invites us to consider the social distribution of knowledge and of lack of knowledge. What is known and not known is never an innocent matter. For example, when narcosubs were captured they were retrieved and put on public display—and heavily publicised in the media. Display of go-fast boats or undetectable submarines provided important ammunition for securing resources and better equipment for law enforcement agencies. In contrast, interdiction/evasion activities in the field are characterised by high levels of uncertainty. Guerrero notes that both sides in ‘need to perform movements and countermovements designed to deceive the enemy. Even if both parties take action to know each other’s intentions in advance, it is clear that neither can acquire perfect information about their plans. Therefore, both sides need mechanisms to make sense of their rivals’ actions and the “absence or presence” of specific clues, which indicates possible situations that can be seen as a call to action’ (Chap. 1, p. 80). This book achieves a number of things. It contributes substantively and conceptually to the body of work on drug smuggling and security; it provokes discussion about the use of metaphor in explanation and whether this provokes further investigation or conceals areas of ignorance. It also throws light on the mobilisation of uncertainty particularly in settings characterised by secrecy and uneven access by different parties. In this sense, it could be seen as a contributor to the emerging field of agnotology. But that is by no means all. It also adds to the body of work on outlaw innovation—and can be seen as an important addition and corrective to the recently much discussed topic of ‘pro-poor innovation’ and ‘innovation at the margins’ (Kaplinsky, 2011).8

Edinburgh, UK Robin Williams

7 Schiebinger, L., & Proctor, R. N. (eds) (2008). Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 8 Kaplinsky, R. (2011). Innovation for pro-poor growth: from redistribution with growth to redistribution through growth. In: Conference in Honour of Sir Richard Jolly—‘From structural adjustment to human development: impact on poverty and inequality’, 17–18 Nov 2011, Brighton. Acknowledgements

This book presents the main findings of my PhD research undertaken in the University of Edinburgh (UK) with the help of scholarships from the Colombian Government (Colciencias), the University of Edinburgh (with the Edinburgh Global Research Scholarship), and the College of Humanities and Social Science Studentship. I am indebted to many senior government and law-enforcement officials and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) from both the Colombian Police and the Colombian Navy, who shared their knowledge and experiences. I thank Craig Martin and Brian Rappert for their comments. I would also like to thank Bruno Jaraba and Óscar Moreno Martínez for their insightful comments. This would not have been possible without the support and advice of Professors Robin Williams and Graham Spinardi, and I am very grateful to both.

xi Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Making Sense of Innovation in the War on Drugs 11

3 The Technologies of Drug Trafficking: The Narcosubmarines 33

4 How Do You Catch Drug Smugglers in the Open Sea? 61

5 Conclusions 87

Index 97

xiii About the Author

Javier Guerrero C. is a Colombian sociologist. He holds an MSc by Research and a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from the University of Edinburgh (UK). He is currently a lecturer at the Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano (Medellín, Colombia) and postdoctoral researcher at the Centro de Estudios de Seguridad y Drogas (CESED) Universidad de los Andes with the support of a postdoctoral scholarship from Colciencias. His research interests focus on the interplay between outlaw innovation, technology, and security in the War on Drugs.

xv Abbreviations

CICAD Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission Cotecmar Corporación de Ciencia y Tecnología para el Desarrollo de la Industrial Naval, Marítima y Fluvial DEA Drug Enforcement Administration LEAs Law Enforcement Agencies LPV Low Profile Vessel MIO Maritime Interdiction Operation NCO Non-Commissioned Officer UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime WoD War on Drugs

xvii List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Number of narcosubs captured by Colombian and US LEAs and military, 1993–2013 44 Fig. 3.2 Exemplars of LPV top left, SPSS top right, submersible bottom left, and torpedo bottom right. (Source: Author) 51 Fig. 3.3 A typical narcosub room distribution 52 Fig. 4.1 A Maritime Interdiction Operation according to Closing the Gap 67 Fig. 4.2 The patrol boats, from the Dolphin (1995) to the Midnight express (2006). (Source: Author) 82

xix CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Abstract Media, state agents, and most of the academic literature present the dynamics of drug trafficking as a catch-up game, in which smugglers are always a step ahead. The diversity of technologies and practices used by drug traffickers are considered as game changers in favour of criminals. The author argues that such interpretations are the result of snapshot of the most newsworthy strategies deployed by drug traffickers and side-lines the many mundane and prosaic practices and technologies used by both the drug smugglers and law enforcement agencies and military in the War on Drugs. Bringing to the fore the co-evolving character of technologies used by drug smugglers and state agencies will help avoid asymmetrical views on drug trafficking.

Keywords War on Drugs • Drug trafficking • Drug smuggling technologies

This book assumes the reader is aware that a war is going on—a different kind of war, a ‘new war’, but not brand new. It might have been going for over a hundred years, forty, or thirty—it depends on what you consider a declaration of war. In this war, the enemy is not easily identifiable or traceable; no territory is conquered or claimed (Feldman, 2004). Few shots are fired as one side mostly aims to remain unnoticed and avoid confrontation while, for the other, discovering the movements of their

© The Author(s) 2020 1 J. Guerrero C., Narcosubmarines, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9023-4_1 2 J. GUERRERO C. enemy and showing up on time are usually enough. There have been, of course, moments of intense violence as a result of the confrontation between drug traffickers and the State, but violence is not as widespread as media tend to portray, for the use of violence is the easiest way to attract the attention of the public and State agencies, eliminating the secrecy smugglers need to conduct their activities. This war takes place on the limits of cultivable land, where poor farmers grow some varieties of plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, and when ‘laboratories’ are destroyed, deep in the jungles, where pasta de coca is converted into cocaine salts. It is fought by stopping the chemicals needed to turn the coca leaves into cocaine: cement, gasoline, and acids. But if the process is completed, and pasta de coca is transformed into cocaine, packaged, and shipped, state agencies will try to discover the movement of said drug to the ‘gathering places’ and seize it. Airports are another battle- field; although luggage is x-rayed and travellers are profiled, drug smugglers will use suitcases, objects, and even people’s bodies to try to avoid the detection of cocaine (sometimes just few grams, sometimes several kilos). Cocaine often finds its way into ports, where containers are sifted, classified as suspicious and non-suspicious, inspected, and opened. However, it would be impossible to inspect all the ‘suspicious’ cargo— what does a suspicious container look like anyway? The air is yet another battleground, where small airplanes are used to transport cocaine (Felbab-Brown, 2005) and air forces are deployed to force suspicious aircrafts to land or destroy them. If illicit drugs reach the sea, it is because they are ready to be loaded into fishing boats, yachts, go-fast boats, trawlers, or narcosubmarines. Navies and Coast Guard units are assigned the task of stopping the flows at any stage of the journey. Furthermore, the tactics of the War on Drugs (WoD) vary widely: man hunting, interdiction, air fumigations, and incarceration. Nevertheless, although governments have spent billions of US dollars on a multitude of efforts aimed at disrupting and dismantling the drug market, the flows of illicit drugs continue to thrive. Plenty of works have examined the illicit drug market. This book aims to go beyond prevalent quantitative studies and interpretations that portray asymmetrical views of drug trafficking by presenting a deeper understanding of the dynamics of the binary interdiction/evasion that incorporates the practices and technologies deployed by drug smugglers and their counterparts. The binary interdiction/evasion is composed of the practices, artefacts, plans, and actions of the law enforcement agencies 1 INTRODUCTION 3

(LEAs) working to stop the flow of illicit drugs, as well as smugglers’ plans, devices, actions, and strategies to evade state control. Colombians have been involved in the illicit traffic of cocaine and played multiple roles in the process since the early years of prohibition. Initially acting as couriers during the 1950s, they later took over the traffic of cocaine, by purchasing pasta de coca or cocaine salts from Peruvian and Bolivian coca farmers, to concentrate on production and transport, in the so-called cartels era since the mid-1980s and early 1990s (Gootenberg, 2008). Cocaine traffic has had cultural, economic, and institutional effects in Colombia (Melo, 1998). Influenced by US Government’s policies to control illicit drugs, specifically those developed since the 1980s (which led to a militarisation of operations against drug smugglers), and adopting a particularly hard-line strategy during the Uribe administration (2002– 2010) (Tickner, 2015), the Colombian Government established the Antinarcotics Police, provided the Air Force with resources to control smugglers using air methods, and promoted the use of the Navy to carry out Maritime Interdiction Operations (MIOs) to stop the flow of illicit drugs at sea. The connection between left-wing guerrillas and illicit drug revenues, summarised under the umbrella of narcoterrorism, further pushed the development of policies leading to the deployment of military solutions to the problem of illicit drugs. Embracing this view, the Colombian and US Governments signed and established the Plan Colombia in 2000. When adopted, the Plan Colombia guaranteed resources for the expansion of the military forces which were justified with the aim of containing narcoterrorism. The perception that smugglers were making intensive use of maritime routes had already led the Colombian Government to boost the role of the Navy with the allocation of resources, which resulted in the creation of the Coast Guard Unit in 1994. Since then, central attention has been devoted to the problem of the use of maritime routes for illicit drug trafficking. The Colombian Navy has focused on strengthening maritime control using a combination of technical solutions (e.g., radars, Information and Communication Technologies, boats, and aircraft support) that are seen as the ‘right’ technology, which is in line with the approach taken by law enforcement and with militarised solutions to the problem of illicit drugs. Since the early 1990s, the Colombian Navy has played an increasingly important role in strategies to control the smuggling of illicit drugs focused on the interdiction of the flows of cocaine. The militarisation of the efforts in the WoD is materialised in the interdiction approach, based 4 J. GUERRERO C. on the idea that the seizure of illicit drugs and the capture of transporters will make traffickers give up on their intention to smuggle their cargo and thus they will abandon the drug business altogether. According to this approach, interdiction is the most cost-effective of all forms of control. Transport costs of illicit smuggling are calculated to be up to 40% of the total costs of the drug business and, therefore, they produce most (of the) revenue (Echeverry, 2004; Kawell, 2001; López Restrepo, 1997; Mejía & Restrepo, 2008; Thoumi, 2005). Despite the steady militarisation of the WoD since the early 1980s, illicit drugs are still produced, and smugglers continue to move their illicit cargo. Drug smugglers are portrayed by the media as highly dynamic, and the illicit drug market in a continuous flux; as a result, several metaphors have been used to describe this phenomenon. For instance, the ‘balloon effect’ is an analogy used to illustrate the way enforcement in one region pushes all or parts of the illicit traffic from one region to another, that is, interdiction results in geographical displacement of the actions of smugglers (Bagley, 2012; Jesperson, 2018; Mejía & Posada, 2008). Law enforcement agencies (LEAs) map trends and trajectories and use a retrospective accumulation of data and localised views as evidence for prospective think- ing. Whenever a significant trend is ‘discovered’, policies, resources, and strategies of law enforcement agencies and military organisations are reconfigured, which involves the procurement and implementation of new artefacts or repurposing existing ones. Thwarting smuggling efforts is said to force smugglers to search for new means of transportation (Decker & Townsend Chapman, 2008). In fact, due to efforts to control the aerial transport of cocaine, the maritime transport of illicit drugs is currently considered the main method used by drug smugglers; however, 25 years ago, that was hardly the case. In 1993, in a short document entitled ‘The Illicit Drug Situation in Colombia’ (Drug Enforcement Administration, 1993), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) considered the maritime traffic to be of little importance and mostly a Caribbean problem. By the late 1990s, it was reported that the vast majority of drugs smuggled from Colombia were transported using maritime routes, and a large percentage departed from ungoverned areas on the Pacific Coast. Consequently, the Colombian Navy got involved in Maritime Interdiction Operations (MIOs) to thwart drug smugglers’ efforts. MIOs are key actions in which competing complex socio-technical systems display their tools/knowledge, which creates conditions that help the two sides of the binary to co-evolve and enables 1 INTRODUCTION 5 interactions that affect the ecosystem in which they act. The Colombian Navy does not simply respond to smugglers’ threats; organisational politics also shape this organisation. Furthermore, smugglers do not only seek to overcome LEAs’ capabilities but to compete with other groups. Therefore, there is more going on than just a race between the two sides, something that neither current studies of criminal networks nor theories of co-evolution thoroughly explain. The objective of this book is to shed light on a set of critical actions undertaken by the Navy to stop smugglers and by smugglers to escape state control. The design, building, and sailing of narcosubs and the practice of Maritime Interdiction Operations offer such opportunity. Forty miles from Buenaventura lies what the Colombian Navy personnel have nicknamed the ‘Narcosubmarine Graveyard’. The graveyard is inside of the main naval base in the Colombian Pacific, the Bahia Malaga base, close to the city of Buenaventura. The Navy base was built during the late 1980s and is somehow in the middle of the maritime routes from Ecuador to Panama. Humidity is close to 90%, it rains almost every day of the year. The ‘graveyard’ is testimony of the many encounters between the drug smugglers and the Navy. The narcosubs appeared in the law enforcement and military radar during the early 1990s, but were taken as odd occurrences. Three weirdly shaped artefacts were captured in the Caribbean coast, and then some rumours about the so-called Cali Cartel dealings with the ‘Russian Mob’ to buy a proper submarine. But it was not until mid of the 2000s that the narcosubs began to be fully utilised by drug smugglers to transport drugs. Such artefacts were nevertheless closer to traditional fishing vessels than cold war era soviet submarines. Narcosubmarines, drug subs, narco semisubmersible, self-propelled semisubmersible, or simply narcosubs, are maritime custom-made vessels, mostly built in the tropical jungle in makeshift shipyards, combining different kinds of knowledge and utilised principally by Colombian drug smugglers with the purpose of smuggling illicit drugs into the US market. The Bahia Malaga narcosub graveyard is a museum and a storage; it is also a memorial place where spoils of war are a constant reminder of past success. There, narcosubs captured by the Navy are displayed forming a row as if they were planning to sail a last voyage; it is a reminder of the capabilities of the Navy but also of the ingenuity of drug smugglers. The graveyard is the place where the smugglers’ innovations die, but where the War on Drugs is very much alive. There, the narcosubs are taken care of, painted, and placed on pedestals. It welcomes visitors, members of police, 6 J. GUERRERO C. or military forces from other countries, and even social researchers; in such occasions, layouts are place indicating several features of the vessel, place of capture with coordinates, name of the operation in which it was captured, type of vessel, which are quickly removed once the visit is over. The existence of the narcosub graveyard indicates the central role played by those vessels in the Navy construction of its enemy. There narcosubs are not just a means of moving drugs, narcosubs are an enemy fleet. But narcosubs are also ‘water coffins’ as the local nickname goes. To sail a narcosub may lead to three main outcomes: to succeed and return with a year’s earning; to be captured by the Colombian Navy or any other law enforcement or military en route, and spend years behind bars; or, because the narcosubs might sink, death. Narcosubs are complex, newsworthy pieces of technology. The narcosubs, as well as other technologies deployed in the WoD, are also metaphor of the dynamics of the encounters between the two sides of the binary interdiction/evasion. There is constant change, but also a sense of stagnation, of immobility. Narcosubs are part of a complex socio-technical system populated by a multitude of other forms of transport of illicit drugs, as well as the technologies and practices deployed by various LEAs and military. While researching for this book, the Colombian Navy discovered the use of fishing satellites buoys as a way to coordinate the logistics of delivery of drugs in open sea. The buoys have been used by drug smugglers to leave the cargo adrift in open sea to be recovered later. The buoys are fitted by drug smugglers with a georeferentiation device. The use of buoys implies a logistic chain system of transport segmented in different steps until the final destination. The buoys are commercially available and are used to locate fishing nets in high sea due to a unique signal known only by the owners or operators. Such capabilities are exploited by drug smugglers. The illicit cocaine is tied to a buoy, transported to open sea, and the signal is shared with another group who would use it to find the drugs and ship it into another vessel. In 2014, the Colombian Navy discovered the use of parasitic devices and uncrewed watercraft artefacts. The first one implied the intervention of scuba divers, both to the placement and recovery of the illicit cargo or their interdiction if reliable intelligence is available. Smugglers attached a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) tube to the portside of a ship, with or without the knowledge of the crew. The PVC tube containing the illicit cargo would be later recovered, again, using scuba divers in the port of destination. But if they are detected by the Navy, then a commander would have to decide using scuba divers in the muddy port waters. The uncrewed 1 INTRODUCTION 7 watercraft vehicles are PVC pipes coated with glass fibre and reinforce- ment in iron in the joint sections. Those artefacts are fitted with an internal combustion engine, used for propulsion and two electric engines used to control direction and submersion. The artefact is controlled via radio and also has ultrasound sensors to avoid obstacles and the control of baro- metric pressure. In between, the Navy seized a kind of narcosub of the ‘torpedo’ kind fitted with a maritime buoy. This book focuses on narcosubmarines and patrol boats, as well as the practices of Maritime Interdiction Operations, and pretends to challenge current understandings of criminal technologies as a result of incremental innovation (i.e., criminals are always up to date in relation with technological innovations) and as playing a decisive factor in favour of criminals. The narcosubmarines and the patrol boats are but two examples of the complex symbiotic relationships present in the binary interdiction/evasion. But they are salient in several senses. The narcosubs, more than most technologies used by drug smugglers, have left traces. There are narcosubs scattered in several navy bases; there is a copious, if mostly fictionalised, information about narcosubs in the media; and, finally, such vessels clearly captured Navy attention and in turn helped the Navy to situate their preoccupations concerning maritime forms of drug transport as a central issue. The literature on organised crime has focused mainly on the role of technology in the production of new forms of crimes, specifically cybercrime (Antonopoulos & Papanicolaou, 2018; Galeotti, 2014; Kavanagh, 2018). While the merge-organised crime-technology, mostly understood as the use of Information and Communication Technologies, is said to have increased criminal capacities (Fedotov, 2017; Naím, 2003), few studies have focused on the materiality of the drug smugglers or law enforcement in the WoD. There are, of course, notable exceptions, for example, the work of Decker and Townsend Chapman (2008) on the strategies used by traffickers to transport drugs towards the end of the 1990s and the beginning of this century. The fact that smugglers, traffickers, and other criminals use technologies has been taken for granted, and provided as an explanation of smugglers’ ‘success’. Chapter 2 offers a critique of current theoretical frameworks to explain the process of innovation in the WoD and presents an alternative. Current interpretations of drug trafficking organisations posit the idea of network types of organisations with the capacity of sudden change. In such interpretations, Drug Smuggling Organisations (DSO) technological choices are the result of the abilities of such DSO to purchase the best available technologies. Although networked 8 J. GUERRERO C. interpretations of DSO have produced insightful analysis of their mobility and behaviour, said studies have not taken technologies or innovation into consideration. I argue that broad interpretations of co-evolution between drug smugglers’ technologies and practices and the Navy and law enforcement do not fully capture the dynamics of technological innovation in the WoD. I review the concept of outlaw innovation and suggest that integrat- ing such a concept with the more recent understanding of the role of users in the production of innovation could be fruitful in explaining drug trafficking innovations. In Chap.3 , I present an overview of the main form of transport of illicit drugs. I argue that transporting of illicit drugs can be summarised in two main strategies—camouflage and speed. Despite traditional views about the continuous evolution of smugglers’ technologies, narcosubs are a good example of how non-coordinated players can produce a complex technology. The diversity of smugglers’ artefacts cannot be explained as the result of a continuous innovation process but as the outcome of different approaches to solve the same problem adopted by diverse groups producing different bricolages. In Chap. 4, I delve into the complexities of catching drug smugglers using maritime strategies. I reflect on the need to approach uncertainty and ignorance as a key element in such actions. The technologies deployed and employed by the Colombian Navy in its efforts to thwart smugglers are analysed as a result of the interaction between the arenas of command and the arenas of practice. After presenting some of the many ways in which drugs are transported and some of the strategies deployed by the Navy, locating the materialities of the transport of drug transportation and strategies by the Navy, elements for a synthesis are gathered. Joining a growing list of literature regarding the production of innovation and artefacts in grey areas, arguing for the need of establishing new lenses away from a view from the state, noticing the asymmetries in such interpretation I argue for an interpretation that contemplates uncertainty and ignorance. Dealing with such implies to rethinking notions of flexibility and success in both sides of the binary, reconsidering how such notions shape the way the innovations are understood. Arguments for such an interpretation are at the centre of the concluding chapter. The empirical materials used to support the arguments were the result of fieldworks undertaken between 2014 and 2018. I conducted interviews in the spectrum between unstructured, non-standardised in-depth interviews and semi-structured, semi-standardised interviews with Navy officials and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs). Additionally, I was allowed to perform guided visits to four of the Navy bases—of which one is in the Caribbean Sea and three are in the Pacific Ocean—where interdic- 1 INTRODUCTION 9 tion operations are planned and carried out. I had access to unclassified material kindly provided by the members of the Colombian Navy and Police, and attended, twice (2017 and 2018) as a speaker and guest the ‘International Seminar on Maritime Interdiction’ organised by the Colombian Navy. In such event, Navy officers of several countries exposed advances and difficulties on the production of actions against drug smugglers. I aspire to shed light on the importance of understanding the production of technologies in the margins, as well as the importance of situated experiences and knowledge about the particular artefacts (interceptor boats) and the sea. Moreover, I wish to accentuate the importance of challenging the widespread interpretations of the WoD, specifically in relation to the role of technology as the driver of success.

References Antonopoulos, G. A., & Papanicolaou, G. (2018). What Is Organized Crime? In Organized Crime: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Bagley, B. (2012). Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime in the Americas: Major Trends in the Twenty-First Century. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Decker, S. H., & Townsend Chapman, M. (2008). Drug smugglers on Drug Smuggling Lessons from the Inside. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Drug Enforcement Administration. (1993). The Illicit Drug Situation in Colombia. U.S. Department of Justice. Echeverry, J. C. (2004). Colombia and the War on Drugs: How Short is the Short Run? Bogotá, DC: CEDE, Universidad de los Andes. Fedotov, Y. (2017). In Just Two Decades, Technology Has Become a Cornerstone of Criminality. Retrieved December 1, 2018, from https://www.unodc.org/ unodc/en/frontpage/2017/October/in-just-two-decades%2D%2Dtechnology- has-become-a-cornerstone-of-criminality.html Felbab-Brown, V. (2005). The Coca Connection: Conflict and Drugs in Colombia and Peru. Journal of Conflict Studies, 25(2). Retrieved from https://journals. lib.unb.ca/index.php/JCS/article/view/489 Feldman, A. (2004). Securocratic wars of public safety Globalized Policing as Scopic Regime. Interventions, 6(3), 330–350. Galeotti, M. (2014). Introduction Global Crime Today. In M. Galeotti (Ed.), Global Crime Today the Changing Face of Organised Crime (pp. 1–7). London: Routledge. Gootenberg, P. (2008). Andean Cocaine: The Making of a Global Drug. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. 10 J. GUERRERO C.

Jesperson, S. (2018). Responding to Drug Trafficking: A Question of Motives. In T. Reitano, S. Jesperson, & L. Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo (Eds.), Militarised Responses to Transnational Organised Crime : The War on Crime (pp. 323– 337). Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. Kavanagh, C. (2018). IT and Cyber Capabilities as a Force Multiplier for Transnational Crime. In V. Comolli (Ed.), Organized Crime and Illicit Trade: How to Respond to This Strategic Challenge in Old and New Domains (pp. 37–77). Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. Kawell, J. (2001). Closing the Latin American Air-Bridge: A Disturbing History. Foreign Policy in Focus, (May 1). Retrieved from https://fpif.org/ closing_the_latin_american_air-bridge_a_disturbing_history/ López Restrepo, A. (1997). Costos del Combate a la Producción, Comercialización y Consumo de Drogas y a la Violencia generada por el Narcotráfico. In F. E. Thoumi (Ed.), Drogas Ilícitas en Colombia: Su impacto Económico, Político y Social (pp. 412–441). Bogotá, DC: Ariel, DNP. Mejía, D., & Posada, C. E. (2008). Cocaine Production and Trafficking: What Do We Know? The World Bank, Development Research Group, Macroeconomics and Growth Team. https://books.google.com.co/books?id=ZEoinP7Dbu8C &pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&dq=Cocaine+Production+and+Trafficking:+What+Do+ We+Know?+The+World+Bank,+Development+Research+Group,+Macroecon omics+and+Growth+Team&source=bl&ots=-6uMMOqEvL&sig=ACfU3U0 wHjMe7JPz2iD-9lO2-Q2gzBCeiA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwibuemp6v vjAhUkuVkKHW6-C88Q6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Cocaine%20 Production%20and%20Trafficking%3A%20What%20Do%20We%20 Know%3F%20The%20World%20Bank%2C%20Development%20Research%20 Group%2C%20Macroeconomics%20and%20Growth%20Team&f=false Mejía, D., & Restrepo, P. (2008). The War on Illegal Drug Production and Trafficking: An Economic Evaluation of Plan Colombia (p. 60). Bogotá, DC: Universidad de Los Andes; CEDE-Centro de Estudios sobre Desarrollo Económico. Melo, J. O. (1998). The Drug Trade, Politics and The Economy: The Colombian Experience BT – Latin America and the Multinational Drug Trade. In E. Joyce & C. Malamud (Eds.), Latin America and the Multinational Drug Trade (pp. 63–96). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-1-349-26047-8_5 Naím, M. (2003). The Five Wars of Globalization. Foreign Policy. Retrieved from https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/11/03/five-wars-of-globalization/ Thoumi, F. E. (2005). The Numbers Game: Let’s All Guess the Size of the Illegal Drug Industry! Journal of Drug Issues, 35(1), 185–200. Tickner, A. B. (2015). Securitization and the Limits of Democratic Security. In D. R. Mares & A. M. Kacowicz (Eds.), Handbook of Latin American Security (pp. 67–77). Abingdon, UK/New York: Routledge. CHAPTER 2

Making Sense of Innovation in the War on Drugs

Abstract Several disciplines have produced an impressive body of literature on organised crime and drug trafficking, especially the economic aspect of drug trafficking. The chapter introduces de multiples pieces of literature dealing with organised crime phenomena and highlights the lack of interest concerning the vehicles in which drugs are transported and the process of innovation triggered by the interplay between drug smugglers and law enforcement agencies. To fully capture such dynamics, it is necessary to understand the importance of outlaw users in the production of both mundane and complex artefacts and the co-evolutionary nature of the innovation process in the War on Drugs (WoD).

Keywords Organised crime • Outlaw innovation • Criminal networks • Co-evolution

Are drug smugglers a step ahead of law enforcement agencies (LEAs) as portrayed in journalists’ accounts and as concluded from most of the academic literature on drug trafficking, organised crime, and transnational organised crime? Is there a different way to characterise the dynamic of the binary interdiction/evasion? Several disciplines have produced an impressive body of literature on organised crime and drug trafficking, especially the economic aspect of the drug business and its organisational

arrangements. Such literature offers explanations of the success and perva- siveness of criminal organisations but sidelines explanations of the complex dynamics in which they perform their actions. Economic models can only capture those dynamics at an abstract level, and they focus on studying the market of illicit drugs (Bushway & Reuter, 2008). Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies, have produced several concepts that have helped to conceptualise dynamics in which change is produced as a result of pressures and influences from one entity over the other. The concepts of programmes and anti-programmes of actions (Latour, 1992) can be suggestive to explain actions on the two sides of the binary interdiction/evasion; nevertheless, such interpretation implies that there is an epi- sodic relationship in which a particular episode is determined by the outcome of a previous one (Czarniawska, 2004). This is possible only in contexts in which players can formulate responses in the face of known results. Such interpretation does not fully capture actions in contexts where players act amid more or less uncertainty. Explanations that go beyond economic models and cost-efficiency as guiding both smugglers and law enforcement/military actions should also be offered. By inter- preting the dynamics interdiction/evasion as co-evolutionary processes and using the metaphor of the Red Queen, it is possible to provide more nuanced interpretations of the way smugglers, LEAs, and the military innovate. Co-evolutionary explanations stress adaptation and change in scenarios in which two entities have a causal influence on each other (Mitleton-Kelly & Davy, 2013).

Organised Crime and Organisational Structure of Drug Traffickers Academic interest in researching organised crime has consistently grown in recent years. Organised crime is perceived as the main security threat in a post-9/11 world. In this new security environment, dangerous criminal organisations are said to be strengthened by their flexibility and capacity to move across borders, posing constant challenges to enforcement; they are the dark side of globalisation (Heine & Thakur, 2011). The adjective ‘transnational’ is often used and, when discussing organised crime, a degree of border crossing is often implied. The learning perspectives focus on the advantages of the networking organisations of traffickers have been useful to understand smugglers’ actions. However, this body of literature 2 MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION IN THE WAR ON DRUGS 13 perpetuates the asymmetric view in which agency is on one side of the binary interdiction/evasion. Flat, horizontal relationships with few decision-making levels allow traffickers to produce quick and sudden change, forcing mostly bureaucratic and slow enforcement agencies to adapt continuously. Most studies into drug and criminal organisations deal with the ‘impact’ of drug trade (Camacho Guizado & López Restrepo, 2000) However, an increasing number of works delve into the Social Network Analysis (SNA) of criminal organisations (Bright, Koskinen, & Malm, 2018). In general, illicit drug research has focused on five aspects: (1) policy analysis on the macro level, (2) supply processes on the regional and sub-regional levels, (3) the impact of drug traffic on economy and politics, (4) links with transnationally operational organised crime, and (5) the effects of multiple strategies designed to control the supply of drugs (Vellinga, 2004). Besides, a growing number of articles feature ethnographic studies of retail and street markets and the production of drugs (Reuter, 2004). Academic and policy analysis of drug trafficking organisations have moved away from economic-bureaucratic descriptions about the cartels to explore the notion of networks (Zaitch, 2004). The term ‘cartel’ has been widely used to refer to drug trafficking organisations. The concept suggests centralised hierarchical structures in which a powerful boss, a ‘drug baron’, and his/her associates control and oversee all the stages of the production and distribution of drugs. As such, these characteristics have supposedly been exploited by LEAs in order to disrupt major groups. Moreover, Bagley (2011, 2012, 2013) attributes the success over the Cali and Medellin ‘cartels’ to the fact that they were hierarchically structured, while declaring that their replacements (criminal networks) are far more difficult to track down and dismantle. The academic literature suggests a shift from a cartel era to one of networks as a strategic adaptation promoted by smugglers to evade state control, and even traditional hierarchical organisations are said to have adopted a network-like structure (Garzón, 2008). According to UNODC’s (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) Report of the High-Level Panel on Threats Challenges and Changes, organised crime is ‘increasingly operating through fluid networks rather than more formal hierarchies. This form of organization provides criminals with diversity, flexibility, low visibility, and longevity’ (2004, p. 53; 2010, p. 27). Recent descriptions of drug trafficking groups demonstrate that they are rarely hierarchical organisations as the ‘cartel’ concept suggests (Kenney, 2007a; McIntosh 14 J. GUERRERO C.

& Lawrence, 2011; Morselli, Giguère, & Petit, 2007; Paoli, 2008; Vellinga, 2004; Williams, 2001). Understanding trafficking groups from the perspective of networks has allowed organised crime scholars to (1) delve into some of the strategies smugglers use to minimise the vulnerabilities of drug trafficking (Benson & Decker,2010 ; Galeotti, 2004; Paoli, 2008) and (2) stress the flexibility and speed with which these organisations are said to change in order to out-fox law enforcement strategies. Describing drug trafficking organisations as networks implies that information flows through a few channels, allowing them greater levels of adaptability in order to respond to market changes or improvements in strategies and technologies developed by LEAs (Kenney, 2003, 2007b). In this analysis of the ‘arms race’ between traffickers and LEAs, the latter have much more technical expertise but are bureaucratically inflexible, while the former possess less expertise but more significant opportunities for local innovations (Beittel, 2012; Gottschalk, 2010; Morselli, 2010). Criminal networks can continuously look for new transport routes and sources of chemicals used to produce cocaine (Thoumi, 2004). Profit- seeking is seen as the primary motivation behind the smart ways in which smugglers respond to enforcement (Mejía & Posada, 2008). Their flexibility and capacity to immediately respond to changes in demand or enforcement are characteristics smugglers desire when organising their activities, which are usually opposed to the inflexibility of governmental agencies. Such adaptability represents a clear challenge to enforcement strategies based on head hunting (Kenney, 2007b). Networks are said to rearrange when one or some of the nodes are removed, which reflects resilience to state actions. Some authors have, nevertheless, noted the limitations of the concept of social networks when studying criminal enterprises. Their studies tend to present said networks as aesthetical devices and criminal networks as synonyms of criminal groups or organisations; they sideline the existence of different forms of organisation and the way members assign meaning to their actions and focus on isolated criminal relationships (Zaitch, 2002, 2004). Hobbs and Antonopoulos (2014) note the limitations of SNA studies of criminal activities, such as the collection of information from individuals involved in criminal groups usually a result of the positive outcome of LEAs. As most studies applying SNA are based on the result of the actions of state agencies, relying solely on those descriptions will ultimately provide an image based on the a priori understanding of the phenomena from the perspective of state agencies, which usually suggests 2 MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION IN THE WAR ON DRUGS 15 stability rather than fluidity and would eventually mirror the bureaucratic concerns of said agencies. They also point out the limitations of SNA approaches to capture the chaos and fluidity of criminal groups. The academic literature on organised crime or criminal networks includes a few works discussing transport methods used by drug smugglers or technological innovation in the War on Drugs (WoD) in general. While Thoumi (2004) mentions ‘important technological advances’ by growers and in laboratories, he does not specify which ones. Reuter (2004), describing transport methods used by smugglers, holds that while in the 1980s drugs were smuggled using dedicated small vessels and small aircraft, his reading of these patterns is derived from available seizures. Kenney (2007a, 2007b, 2007c) mentions the ease with which smugglers could procure technology and their shift to ‘exotic’ smuggling transport methods. The work by Caulkins, Burnett, and Leslie (2009) and the book by Decker and Townsend Chapman (2008) offer important first-hand empirical insights into the descriptions of the methods used by smugglers to transport illicit drugs to consumer countries. Decker and Townsend Chapman detail the methods and structure of specialised groups ‘selling’ smuggling services to Colombian ‘cartels’ for comprehensive transport. Under this model, transporters do not own the drugs and receive the pay- ment when the shipment is delivered. Caulkins, Burnett, and Leslie describe two different models: one in which individuals receive payments per working day and another one in which transporters also own the drugs. In this respect, the focus of the work developed by Decker and Townsend Chapman is more relevant. Said authors interviewed mostly Colombian drug smugglers transporting drugs to the United States via maritime routes; they present an overview of their decision making and risk making strategies. Nevertheless, they do not explore the theoretical implications of their results. Scholars studying organised crime and drug networks acknowledge the complex interactions of smugglers and state agencies. Thoumi (1997) and Bibes (2001) point out the existence of parasitic, symbiotic, or predatory relationships between state and drug traffickers. These authors only focus on relationships state agents directly benefit from by establishing direct or covert contact with smugglers in order to receive monetary benefits, as well as the overlapping areas of influence between drug traffickers and right-wing paramilitary groups or left-wing guerrillas. In turn, Reuter (2004) describes interactions between drug smugglers and LEAs, specifically regarding routes and transport methods. Krebs, Costelloe, and Jenks 16 J. GUERRERO C.

(2003, p. 151) explore those relationships from a game theory approach and conclude that ‘a major reason that drug smuggling persists in the face of intense interdiction and prohibition efforts is that those who choose to indulge in such behaviour respond to anti-drug strategies with equally intense and innovative tactics.’ Studying criminal groups and activities from a network approach helps to capture the flexibility and dynamic nature of illegal enterprises, especially on the micro-level. Nevertheless, by focusing on those characteristics, said body of literature has neglected some critical issues. First, even when a complex environment is acknowledged, change is often interpreted as a response and counter-response pattern. Second, the literature has often stereotyped versions of enforcement agencies. Third, a theory of this type of innovation has not been developed.

Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies: Military and Outlaw Users Science and Technology Studies (STS) have explored the relationship between knowledge and military technology and processes of innovation in the construction and procurement of military technologies and weapons of mass destruction, as well as security issues and security governance in a broader sense (Rappert & Croft, 2007), stressing the role of military and technology in security (Rappert, Balmer, & Stone, 2008). STS have shown that military innovation is the result of a complex process affected by political decisions, competition, and collaboration within and between different branches of the military and it should be analysed in the context of the political function of military forces (Greenwood, 1990). Constant (2000) discusses the co-evolving nature of military innovation and notes that military organisations are considered to possess strong institutional memory; besides, they are better at choosing technology or predicting the consequences than any other institution (2000). Understanding the challenges faced by the armed forces fighting the War on Terror (WoT) and the War on Drugs (WoD) offers a pathway to explain the process of technological innovation. Fighting this new type of war requires changes in military organisation, that is, classic strategies of warfare cannot be deployed against drug and terrorist networks (Desouza, Koh, & Ouksel, 2007; Desouza & Wang, 2007). If during the Cold War, technological competition fulfilled a symbolic function, in the WoD and 2 MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION IN THE WAR ON DRUGS 17

WoT, the need to predict the adversary’s actions increases (Franck & Pierce, 2006). Much of the analysis of military innovation has delved into what can be called the ‘traditional’ role of the military. There is growing concern about the role of the military in the WoT, as well as other militarised responses to crime (Reitano, De Lugo, & Jesperson, 2018), which brings to light the transformation of the military in order to face asymmetrical enemies while still focusing on their technical capacity. In general, studies of the military and their counterpart focus on the localised character of their practices, their daily activities, and their role as producers and users of technology. Science and Technology Studies (STS), Innovation Studies (IS), and Innovation Management (IM) have stressed the importance of users in developing an understanding of the process of technological innovation (Bogers, Afuah, & Bastian, 2010). These disciplines have emphasised ‘the creative capacity of users to shape technological development in all phases of technological innovation’ (Oudshoorn & Pinch, 2008, p. 554). These different fields have highlighted particular aspects or perspectives of user involvement with technology (Flowers & Hendwood, 2010), developing different terminologies (Oudshoorn & Pinch, 2003). Due to the complexity of such processes, complementarity between different perspectives can help to achieve a better understanding (Flowers & Hendwood, 2010). Evidence of the importance of users in technological innovation was firstly described in the 1960s (Bogers et al., 2010). Nevertheless, traditional approaches have stressed the linearity of the process of user involvement; they associate the need for information with users and solutions with producers, thus allowing some exchange of information for the sake of improving existing products or developing new ones (Bogers et al., 2010) and neglecting the importance of users and user-led R&D policies (Flowers, 2011). Innovation Studies have focused on the study of technological innovation by product manufacturers (Oudshoorn & Pinch, 2008). However, an essential strand of the literature within IS has extensively researched the role of users in the process of technological innovation; the pioneer of that strand of inquiry was Eric Von Hippel. Said studies have ‘focused on veri- fying the extent of the invention by users, identifying the users that are likely to innovate, why and where users innovate, and the composition of user-innovation communities’ (Hyysalo, 2009, p. 248). In its early stages, the research field was concerned with how users’ innovation presented challenges to manufacturers (Voss, 2010); and, more recently, it has 18 J. GUERRERO C. moved to a scenario in which firms can harness developments by users (Flowers & Hendwood, 2010). IS have introduced an array of concepts and data collection methods, such as innovation user, user/self- manufacturer, and user-as-innovator (Bogers et al., 2010; Oudshoorn & Pinch, 2008; Voss, 2010). The role of users in the process of technological innovation in outdoor sports has also received attention from technology studies. More specifically, IS (Lüthje, 2004; Lüthje, Herstatt, & von Hippel, 2005; Shah, 2006; Voss, 2010) as well as scholars closer to the Social Shaping of Technology (SST) perspective (Hyysalo, 2009) have focused on extreme sports equipment. Despite the different methodolo- gies and emphases of each field, both highlight the capacity of users in outdoor sports to shape habits, technologies, organisations, cultural values, regulations, and the behaviour of other practitioners, as well as to modify the initial purpose of the equipment. Innovative users in extreme sports are often members of ‘communities of practice’ (Bogers et al., 2010; Voss, 2010). Scholars in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), especially those who adopt approaches related to Social Construction and Social Shaping of Technology (SST), have stressed the active role of users in shaping and re-shaping particular artefacts, moving from manufacturer- centred perspectives to a more user-centred approach of the role of users in the process of innovation and diffusion of technologies (Flowers & Hendwood, 2010; Kline & Pinch, 1996; Russell & Williams, 2002a, 2002b). The relationship between users and technologies and technological change was first revealed in STS by the theory of Social Construction of Technology (SCOT); and, since then, the active role of users has become a fundamental concept for the SCOT approach. SCOT scholars rightly criticise the passive role of users in the linear model of innovation (Pinch & Bijker, 1987). Scholars have also investigated user innovation when users are involved in illegal or illicit activities or spaces where innovations and knowledge are not freely shared, or at least not in the same ways as in traditional settings or firms, such as pornography (Coopersmith, 1998, 2006; Voss, 2007). Different Innovation Studies (Choi & Perez, 2007; Flowers, 2008), and works that adopt approaches close to STS perspectives (Jordan & Taylor, 1998; Maxigas, 2017; Söderberg, 2010; Taylor, 1999) have investigated hackers’ activities. While IS focuses on the possibilities of harnessing knowledge produced by hackers and on the consequences for established business models, STS have paid attention to the process of co-construction of participants’ identities. STS have studied the 2 MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION IN THE WAR ON DRUGS 19 way the actions of ‘unruly users’, hackers, underpin collective imagination, the process of labelling activities as deviant, and the configuration of their intragroup identities. Said studies have shown that identities within these groups, as well as their relationships with enforcement agencies and security personnel, are extremely heterogeneous and fluid. They have also shown the importance of antagonistic relations in driving technological change; that is to say, the competitive relationship between hackers and the security industry. Furthermore, they have acknowledged the potential contribution of studying the process of innovation by analysing both ‘lay expertise’ and outlaw innovation (Jordan & Taylor, 1998; Söderberg, 2010; Taylor, 1999). The concept of outlaw innovation was developed by scholars in Innovation Studies to describe innovation in hacking activities and online piracy and their relationship with Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) (Schulz & Wagner, 2008). This concept is profoundly influenced by the idea of ‘harnessing’ these types of user innovators and their economic consequences for firms. However, it has also drawn on concepts from the STS perspective in order to explain outlaw innovation, particularly the concept of ‘user resistance’ as a key element in the process of technological innovation (Flowers, 2008). Flowers defines outlaw users as ‘users who, either individually or as part of a group, actively oppose or ignore the limitations imposed on them by proposed or established technical standards, products, systems or legal frameworks’ (Flowers, 2008, p. 180). Case studies on outlaw innovation that adopt the perspective of IS recognise the existence of an ‘outlaw community’, which is defined as ‘groups of users, who create and disseminate innovations that not only conflict with manufacturers’ intentions of the usage of the original product but also violate firms’ IPR’ (Schulz & Wagner,2008 , p. 402). Said communities are composed of both, innovative outlaw users and those who adopt the innovations. The literature demonstrates that confrontation with LEAs compels users to innovate and, as proposed by Söderberg (2017), outlaw innovation cannot be explained without a theory of conflict and taking into account the co-evolutionary character of such type of innovation.

A Co-evolutionary Analysis Approach Frank Geels (2005b) has stressed the co-evolutionary relationship between markets, user practices, regulations, culture, and science. STS have explored several dimensions of the co-evolutionary process and, 20 J. GUERRERO C. among them, the relationships between technology and users; science and technology; technologies and markets; technology, industry, and policy making; technology and culture; technology and society (Geels, 2005b; Rip & Kemp, 1998); and between technology and organisational styles (Fairtlough, 2000). In the words of Geels, co-evolution is often used as ‘a reminder to disciplinary scholars that more aspects are important than they actually study’ (Geels, 2005b, p. 61). Co-evolutionary dynamics have been extended from evolutionary biology to social sciences as a metaphor, interpretative framework, or broad characterisation of co-developed or mutually shaping relationships (Mitleton-Kelly & Davy, 2013; Rip, 2002). As noted by Jablonka and Ziman (2000), some forms of co-evolution may imply antagonistic or cooperative interactions. The former type of interactions often leads to a dynamic arms race in which all sides have to keep evolving in relation to their natural enemy, thus invoking what is known as the Red Queen Hypothesis (RQH). The death/replacement process is characteristic of such prey/predator antagonistic types of interaction (Andriani, 2003). As Ziman (2000) points out, mutualistic relationships can be described as ecological systems of co-evolving artefacts. There are several metaphors to explain mobility and change in the illicit drug market as well as other criminal activities. The most popular among them is the ‘balloon effect’, according to which successful state actions only manage to push criminal activities to other regions (Jesperson, 2018). As such, the balloon effect only captures the geographical dimensions of the phenomena. The RQH serves as a better metaphor to explain complex evolutionary interplays between smugglers and LEAs, and several authors have explored it in relation with innovation at firms and competition between firms (Barnett, 2008; Barnett & Hansen, 1996; Baumol, 2004). The RQH assumes co-evolution and a general tendency to microevolu- tion (Kauffman, 1995). In such conditions, different sides need to speed up co-evolution in order to stay in the competition. Taken from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, this hypothesis claims that it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place, describing a situation in which the success of different players is based on the premise that, in order to match or exceed others’ performance, all participants have to move in a continuous arms race of continuous defence and counter-defence (Barnett & Hansen, 1996; Baumol, 2004). This, in turn, implies a constant change in the ecosystem as a result of the evolution of the entities (Kauffman, 1995; Kauffman & Macready, 1995). ‘Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in 2 MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION IN THE WAR ON DRUGS 21 the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!’, reminds the Red Queen to Alice in ‘Through the Looking-Glass’ (Carroll, 1872, p. 145). This story, from which the terms ‘Red Queen Effect’ (RQE) or ‘Red Queen Hypothesis’ originate, serves as a metaphor to understand specific behaviours. More specifically, according to the Red Queen Effect (RQE), the choice is simple: to do nothing and be overtaken or to struggle to stay alive. Examples of similar behaviours of organisations in competitive environments can be found in biological entities. In the WoD, the rivals are different smuggling groups competing against each other, LEAs, the military; furthermore, there have been cases of rivalry between several LEAs and the military. Drug smugglers must create strategies to maintain their position in the business, although implementing them does not guarantee said position. For example, some smugglers adopt or invest in new transport methods and new technologies in an attempt to evade state control; nevertheless, those innovations can be quickly adopted by competitors and discovered by state actors, thus creating a new scenario with new technologies but in which the competitive relationship continues. The RQE assumes a link between organisational learning and ecology (understood as the relationship between organisms and their environment). According to Barnett and Sorenson (2002), competition between organisations triggers organisational learning processes, which in turn strengthen their competitiveness. Learning and competition complement each other, thus starting the self-reinforcing process of the RQE. To explain this effect, Barnett and Hansen (1996) consider two distinct and simultaneous effects: on one hand, the experience of the organisation and the way it acts; and, on the other hand, the experience of its competitors and the way they react. Furthermore, Barnett (2008, p. 12) states that ‘organizations may not know what logics of competition are operating when they first enter a context, but they learn by experiencing competition’—this is, learning by doing (Fleck, 1994). The response of an organisation will tend to make it look more competitive than its competitors (Barnett & Hansen, 1996). This improvement will result in the reaction of said competitors who will, in turn, seek to learn, and so on and so forth. In the dynamics explored by the metaphor of the ‘Red Queen’, learning and innovation do not provide a long-lasting benefit; on the contrary, their advantages are temporary. The RQE dictates that, faced by competitors, an organisation will seek to stand out and create competitive advantages by developing new ways of doing things. That process will create an 22 J. GUERRERO C. environmental imbalance and its rivals will be confronted with a more efficient competitor than themselves. Competitors will try, in turn, to propose a new solution to match their rivals and gain advantage, thus improving their own performance (Barnett, 2008). There is a reciprocal influence between the two sides of the binary interdiction/evasion, and the change in the Navy’s and smugglers’ practices can be interpreted as the result of an interweaved, symbiotic relationship. As a result, both socio-technical systems can be said to co-evolve. In short, the RQH captures the dynamics of the WoD better than other metaphors in turbulent, chaotic environments where the dynamics are particularly aggressive and no side can have and maintain a competitive advantage over time. While changes in the host or parasite may offer temporary advantages and they do result in variations in the backdrop, they are not significant enough as to escape the dynamics. Players in the War on Drugs (WoD) perceive opportunities to move and act. However, knowledge asymmetry, communication failures, and the actions and strategies of several uncoordinated actors result in situations in which the players end up no better off, or perhaps worse, than at the beginning. This creates a scenario where both sides of the binary interdiction/evasion run ‘as fast as (they) can’ to stay in the same place. The empirical chapters of this book delve into the description of encounters between the Colombian Navy and drug smugglers at open sea. Maritime Interdiction Operations (MIOs) in the WoD are aimed at stopping smugglers from reaching their destination. For that purpose, MIOs are envisioned by personnel in the field and by the upper echelons of the Navy, the arenas of practice, and the arenas of command, while smugglers attempt to provide solutions, often with complex pieces of technology, in order to transport illicit drugs. The actions of the Navy in the WoD are configured by the relationships of those two arenas (practice and command), which reveal the way local knowledge of technical requirements interplays with global policies of illicit drug prevention, thus demonstrating a co-evolutionary dynamic. However, it also proves that several factors shape the technology in the WoD. The Social Shaping of Technology (SST) framework serves as a theoretical and methodological guide to examine the role of different forms of knowledge, social learning, and the concept of configurational technologies. Stewart, Williams, and Slack have advanced these ideas under the banner of social learning (Williams, Stewart, & Slack, 2005) and Pollock, Williams, and Hyysalo under the ‘Biography of Artefacts and Practices’ (BOAP) (Hyysalo, Pollock, & 2 MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION IN THE WAR ON DRUGS 23

Williams, 2018). A main concern for the social learning perspective and the BOAP is ‘the complex and dispersed processes of learning and strug- gling as new technological capabilities are adapted to and incorporated within the detailed fabric of social life’ (Pollock & Williams, 2008, p. 77). The SST is ‘a generic approach to the study of technology that remains anti-determinist and anti-linear, but less concerned with the issue of “materialization” of social interests’ (Sørensen, 2002, p. 21). Said framework recognises that the process of procurement of technology is much more complex than customarily understood and that ‘users, or those purchasing technology for organisations, are guided and constrained by complex mixes of acknowledged objectives, priorities, criteria and perhaps regulatory constraints, as well as values, pressures, images and associations’ (Russell & Williams, 2002a, 2002b, pp. 66–67). The idea—that artefacts may be reworked and that when an artefact is incorporated into a local setting it opens up new possibilities—of social shaping process occurs across multiple locales and timeframes (Pollock & Williams, 2008; Stewart & Williams, 2005). Another essential element of the SST approach is the development of a useful conceptual vocabulary to denote different categories of knowledge used in innovation (Russell & Williams, 2002a, 2002b). As characterised by Pollock and Williams (2008, p. 103), the BOAP approach:

Seek[s] to explore how local actions and outcomes depend upon a context of knowledge and beliefs which, in contrast to a narrowly semiotic interpretation of power, provides material as well as intellectual resources that generate incentives and penalties for local players and pattern the conduct and outcome of local actions by framing discussions. We are also seeking to explain how local actions collectively react back on to and produce/repro- duce social structures.

Distinctions are made between explicit/formal knowledge and tacit knowledge. The former is embodied in codified theories and, as noted by Fleck, ‘In general, the possession of formal knowledge confers status and consequently a measure of power or influence within organizations’ (Fleck, 1997, p. 384). In turn, the latter (embodied in individuals as skills and intellectual compatibilities firmly based on practice and experience) can be transmitted by apprenticeship and training, and through ‘watching and doing’ forms of learning (Fleck, 1997). Explicit knowledge is information or instructions that can be formulated in words or symbols and, 24 J. GUERRERO C. therefore, it can be stored, copied, and transferred by impersonal means, such as in written documents or computer files. Tacit knowledge, on the other hand, is knowledge that has not been (and perhaps cannot be) formulated explicitly and, therefore, it cannot be completely and adequately stored or transferred by impersonal means (MacKenzie & Spinardi, 1995). Fleck (1997) expanded these categories to include knowledge embodied in tool use (instrumentalities) and informal knowledge as embodied in verbal interactions, rules of thumb, and tricks of the trade. Meta-knowledge is embodied in the organisation in the form of values and assumptions about the nature of reality. Contingent knowledge is distributed and apparently trivial information specific to a particular environment. According to Fleck, this form of knowledge is: (1) distributed throughout an organisation, often at the lower levels of the hierarchy; (2) apparently trivial, the difference being that informal knowledge is more accidental and less sys- tematically build around particular tasks or technologies; and (3) highly specific to the particular application domain, concrete rather than theoretical, and it tends to remain associated with the context (Fleck, 1997, p. 390). Scholars that support the social learning approach have emphasised the importance of local tacit knowledge and the difficulties of capturing and disseminating such ‘sticky knowledge’ (Pollock & Williams, 2008). With few exceptions, learning and knowledge issues have not been explored in organised crime or drug studies. Using the distinction by James Scott in Seeing Like a State between mētis and techne, Kenney (2003, 2007a, 2010) attempts to demonstrate the competitive advantages of traffickers.M ētis is an experimental and intuitive kind of knowledge, which can only be developed through engagement in specific activities and resists any form of codification. Conversely, thetechne is abstract technical knowledge that can be codified and transmitted through formal instruc- tion. Therefore, the techne is acquired by abstraction while the mētis, by doing. Nevertheless, such definitions do not capture the process of technological innovation in the WoD, which may be explained under the concept of configurational and generic technologies. Said concept helps to characterise the way different smuggling groups assimilate technologies and development capabilities in order to design, build, and use their artefacts. A configurational technology is built by selecting and configuring a range of available components (often exploiting cheap and tried and tested standard solutions) coupled with some customised elements to meet particular requirements. This involves a process in which existing components are adopted, modified, and/or recombined to create new forms adapted 2 MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION IN THE WAR ON DRUGS 25 to outlaw users’ requirements or bricolage (Büscher, Gill, Mogensen, & Shapiro, 2001; Fleck, 1988, 1994). Besides, these solutions ‘are largely shaped in each application by user requirements and the specific circumstances in which they are to be used’ (McLoughlin & Harris, 1997, p. 5). Generic technologies, however, because of their intrinsic qualities ‘allow[ing] them to be applied with only minor adjustments’ (McLoughlin & Harris, 1997, p. 5). Finally, an essential development on the involvement of users in the process of technological innovation is the recent work by Hyysalo and Usenyuk (2015). In their study of the Karakat, they propose the concept of dispersed peer innovation as a way to understand the way non- coordinated actors, without the presence of arenas of interaction, can produce complex pieces of technology. They demonstrate the capacity of users to create complex technologies and master all the aspects of machines, despite attempts by manufacturers to take over (Hyysalo & Usenyuk, 2015). The current literature on organised crime and ‘drug studies’ stress the networked and fluid nature of criminal organisations. To fully capture such dynamics, it is necessary to understand the importance of outlaw users in the production of both mundane and complex artefacts and the co-evolutionary nature of the innovation process in the WoD. There are several knowledge gaps regarding the interdiction/evasion dynamics, as can be observed from the literature on organised crime and drug studies. In general, both scholars and state agencies use the ideas of networking and flexibility to characterise different types of criminal actions. Those interpretations are the result of an asymmetrical view of the phenomena according to which the dynamics of the binary interdiction/evasion are analysed only as a result of the actions of players that attempt to evade the law, thus leaving aside multiple relational aspects of that relationship. Nevertheless, even when said symbiotic relationship between the two sides is acknowledged, this narrow understanding of the phenomena prevails.

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The Technologies of Drug Trafficking: The Narcosubmarines

Abstract This chapter provides an account of the development of the narcosubmarines, custom-made vessels designed, built, and used with the purpose of transporting illicit drugs. The narcosubs demonstrate users’ capacity to innovate. The author argues that it is necessary to overcome the shortcomings of traditional explanation for smugglers’ innovation. Outlaw innovators can integrate characteristics of complex organisations (such as some degree of hierarchical structure and specialisation with informal interactions) to create a complex technology even in the absence of established arenas of cooperation, suggesting that said arenas are not necessary for outlaw innovation.

Keywords Narcosubmarines • Drug smugglers • Outlaw innovation • Dispersed peer innovation • War on Drugs

Somewhere on the Colombian Pacific coast in 2008, the heyday of narcosubs:

The captain is sure this time they will capture a narcosub, the crew, and their cargo because they are receiving reliable information about the construction and imminent sailing of one. Navy personnel have already recognised the difficulties of capturing narcosubs at open sea; thus, they have invested most of their resources in an effort to gather intelligence. Previous operations ended in disappointment: they set out to capture what they thought was a narcosub, but

it turned out to be just a ‘panga’ or nothing at all. This time they have been receiving a constant stream of information and monitored the movement of people into an uninhabited mangrove area. Finally, they manage to monitor the progress of the narcosub in real time and now, at high tide, they can track it down, leaving the mangrove behind and moving into the open sea. The captain, who is also the commander of the base, after consulting with the regional commander, gives an order to capture the narcosub. The team has prepared in advance without knowing why they have been on alert for several days, so ten- sion is alternatively growing and waning. A frigate from the surface fleet has been called to fulfil backup duties, but the bulk of the operation is the responsibility of two small units and a helicopter. Even with detailed information, finding the narcosub is a difficult task; the usual clues are not present: no wake and insignificant heat signature. The vessel painted dark blue camouflages amid the waves. From afar, a member of one of the Coast Guard boats sees a couple of human silhouettes walking on water. As the Coast Guard boats approach, more silhouettes appear and the four crew members of the narcosub are already waiting on the deck. Finally, from about 25 meters, the seamen could see it: the narcosub. The captain orders the crew to approach and search the vessel. A lieutenant, an NCO, and two marines approach. They board the narcosub and request to search the vessel. They find nothing but a strong diesel smell. When they enquire about the cocaine, the answer is ‘What cocaine? Why should there be any cocaine in here? We built this vessel just for fun.’ Sailing a submarine was not a criminal offense in Colombia at the time, thus the Coast Guard personnel have no other choice but to issue some worthless warnings and let the crew of the vessel go. Later they find out that the vessel was on a trial run. The builders wanted to confirm that the vessel was safe enough to make a trip to a location further up on the coastal area of Central America than in previous voyages.

This vignette illustrates the complexities of Maritime Interdiction Operations, a critical moment of interplay between drug smugglers and military and enforcement technologies and practices. In an interdiction operation, the resources invested by the State and drug smugglers are confronted. Over the years, Colombian drug smugglers have adopted a wide variety of methods and camouflage strategies to transport drugs to both transhipment and consumer countries. Smugglers have used air, sea, and land as well as the so-called drug mules,1 swallowing, body packing, clothes impregnated with cocaine salts, and luggage and its contents as a transport device. In air courier and cargo, they have implemented various

1 A term that emphasises docility, exploitation, and physical strength (Zaitch, 2002). 3 THE TECHNOLOGIES OF DRUG TRAFFICKING: THE NARCOSUBMARINES 35 concealment methods, often sending small quantities of cocaine camouflaged in all sorts of prosaic objects and unauthorised flights of small aircraft departing from makeshift landing strips. They have camouflaged the cocaine amid legal cargo and used containers as vehicles, modifying their structure to conceal the cocaine or using the legal cargo as a cover. They also use traditional fisher boats, trawlers, go-fast boats and build their artefacts: boats, parasitic devices, and submersible and semisubmersible watercraft. All these developments involve some degree of coordination, knowledge, and expertise. Even if smugglers cannot match the technologies employed by the law enforcement and the military, they seem to remain permanently one step ahead of enforcement efforts (Kenney, 2007a; López Restrepo & Camacho Guizado, 2007). Market conditions and changes in the arrangements of drug organisations (Galeotti, 2004; Kenney, 2003) can only serve as broad explanations as to why smugglers buy technologies and innovate. The history of illicit drug trafficking and criminal organisations has focussed on the ‘cartels’, and a subtler story has been overshadowed by the organisational arrangements of drug smugglers: the way drug smugglers carry out their day-today activities and move their cargo as well as the strategies designed to thwart their efforts. The history of the transport strategies used by smugglers and the efforts of the law enforcement and the military to detect and stop the illicit flows reveal adaptation processes, changes, and learning on both sides of the binary interdiction/evasion. The beginning of the so-called cartels could be described as a learning period. On those early days, traffickers could easily camouflage the illicit cargo to facilitate the transport of drugs from processing facilities, laboratories, to meeting points using little or no means to hide it. The lack of training and clear strategies to face illicit drug trafficking at the beginning of the era of the ‘cartels’ allowed traffickers to use existing infrastructure and unpoliced areas to carry out their activities. When the law enforcement caught up, the interdiction/evasion dynamics were fostered; this resulted, since the mid-1980s, in the development of sophisticated transport and distribution networks by drug traffickers (Thoumi, 2014), the improvement of their capacity to use more sophisticated logistics, including different ways to camouflage illicit drugs, and the development of ‘faster’ transport methods. Drug traffickers produced adaptations that allowed them to benefit from the infrastructure offered by global commerce and to exploit a wide array of knowledge to create their own logistics networks and artefacts. 36 J. GUERRERO C.

The history of drug trafficking is widely narrated following somewhat clear stages, from ‘cartels’ and ‘cartelitos’ to ‘networks’, and from air transport to maritime transport methods, and so on. This is, nonetheless, an oversimplification of the complexity of the interdiction/evasion binary. Rather than stages of particular transport methods, what can be observed is a continuous readjustment of old and new artefacts and practices on both sides of the binary. In the early 1980s, maritime drug smuggling was considered a matter of secondary importance and, mostly, a Caribbean problem. At that time, drug smugglers used San Andrés as well as other Caribbean islands as transhipment points. They relied on individual aerial couriers, mules (mulas), and small planes, often airdropping carefully packaged cocaine and air cargo. The transport of cocaine using containerised marine cargo traffic was merely considered an emerging problem (Strategic Intelligence Section, 1993). During the 1980s, the efforts of state agencies concentrated on the control of bulk drug transport using different air methods, and a series of newly coined terms in Spanish described smugglers’ tactics: narcovuelos, narcoaviones, and narcopistas. To improve air transport methods, traffickers modified gas containers and increased airplanes’ range; thus, they could travel from Colombia to Mexico and back without refuelling (El Tiempo, 1995b). As a result of the operations to stop the ‘narco- planes’, the Colombian police seized a Boeing 727 owned by the ‘Cali Cartel’ and used to transport illicit drugs from Colombia to Mexico (El Tiempo, 1995c). Traditionally, they adopted three main air transport methods: (1) air droppings, for which traffickers developed durable and impermeable packaging systems and logistics; (2) landing in small airplanes near the US border; and (3) using commercial airlines or cargo planes with a range of concealing methods (Decker & Townsend Chapman, 2008). Other transport methods exploited the already existing infrastructure by transporting big or small amounts of cocaine via cargo. Smugglers also used concealing strategies to carry from 300 g up to 5 kilos and, for that purpose, they resorted to a vast array of camouflage methods; some of them imply formal knowledge of chemistry, others artisanal work and, quite often, a combination of both. According to Decker and Townsend Chapman (2008), most air transport of illicit drug-using small airplanes was thwarted by the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS). Furthermore, ‘Operation Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos’ (OPBAT) and Operation ‘Hat Trick’ reduced air traffic methods and forced smugglers to use maritime routes. 3 THE TECHNOLOGIES OF DRUG TRAFFICKING: THE NARCOSUBMARINES 37

However, claims about the results of this approach have been contested by Bagley (1991), who admits that the use of AWACS might have helped to improve the surveillance of the Caribbean drug routes, yet it did so at a high cost and did not produce the expected results. Notwithstanding, during the 2010s, air transport remained among the most widely used strategies to smuggle illicit drugs. Smugglers have made extensive use of GPS systems that (1) help them to avoid the problems of the past, such as airdropping or landing on the wrong place, and (2) increase logistic capacities. It is, nevertheless, generally assumed that the use of air traffic methods has been greatly reduced and that this reduction has contributed to a shift in smuggling methods from aircraft delivery to less detectable methods, for example, maritime alternatives, such as cargo ships, fishing ships, go- fast boats, and narcosubs (Observatorio de Drogas de Colombia, 2010; UNODC, 2008). Drug smugglers made use of traditional knowledge of goods smuggling routes and exploited unpoliced areas. Hence, drug traffickers challenge enforcement agencies by using speedboats, fishing boats, and container ships in said area (Bagley, 2004; Chepesiuk, 1999). Due to the widespread use of go-fast boats in drug smuggling, such artefacts soon came to the attention of the Navy and their movement was considered suspicious (Decker & Townsend Chapman, 2008). The raid in 1997, of a communication centre in the middle of Bogota’s industrial district (designed to coordinate go-fast boats’ movements) and the discovery of a drug smugglers’ ring (which combined go-fast boats, scuba divers, and open sea freighters in order to transport drugs to Europe) provided law enforcement agencies (LEAs) with further evidence of the widespread use of maritime smuggling methods (El Tiempo, 1997). During the 1990s, smugglers used yachts and sailboats carrying more significant amounts of cargo and making longer trips. Smugglers had already developed a considerable engineering capacity by using fiberglass to build compartments, often with a hydraulic system between the hull and the floor near the gas compartments, which made it hard for trained dogs to smell the cocaine (Decker & Townsend Chapman, 2008). By 2013, regional stakeholders such as the Organization of American States and Colombian agencies (the Colombian Navy and the Colombian Police) had narrowed down maritime drug transport methods to a handful, including cargo containers, go-fast boats, recreational boats, fishing boats, and narcosubs. Nonetheless, smugglers have applied several naval transport methods since the early days of marihuana smuggling from La 38 J. GUERRERO C.

Guajira in Colombia, and the use of traditional smuggling routes was continued during the boom of marihuana. The same routes that were intensively utilised during the era of the cartels survived their downfall and passed into the era of ‘cartelitos’ and ‘networks.’

Camouflage and Speed: Smugglers’ Strategies to Transport Illicit Drugs To succeed, drug smugglers need to develop strategies in the form of operational stealth, and strategic and logistical flexibility and tactical– logistical knowledge (Basu, 2014; Martin, 2012). Colombian drug smugglers have used several methods of transport over maritime routes and diverse forms of stealthiness and knowledge of logistic circuits. A short report produced by the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) identified the most common methods of maritime transportation of illicit drugs (First Inter-American Cooperation Meeting on Antidrug Maritime, 1997): Low-Profile vessels, go-fast vessels, fishing vessels/small coastal freighters, recreational ships, and ocean-going freighters. Concerning cargo-containers, LEAs have identified two strategies: (1) members of the crew smuggle small quantities of illicit drugs, usually using their lodgings to camouflage the drugs, and (2) they hide significant amounts of cocaine inside containers or engine rooms which, according to LEAs, has been done with or without the knowledge of the crew or the owner of the goods.2 Colombian smugglers have managed to gain tactical–logistical knowledge of the workings of port security, its vulnerabilities,3 and how to use the inherent mobility of the shipping container (Martin, 2015) as well as other forms of cargo shipping. As a result, smugglers can modify the structure of containers to hide the illicit drugs or disguise illicit cargo in their floor, ceiling, or walls.

2 It is not uncommon for traffickers to establish legal export firms and to send several ‘clean’ shipments to create a good record. After this is achieved, they test the controls by sending different amounts of cocaine. 3 Private companies have owned Colombian Ports since 1991. Port management must provide security mechanisms to deter smugglers from using ports as points of departure of illicit cargo. Since 1995, the Colombian Antinarcotics Police have been in charge of security activities, inspections, and intelligence at the main ports in Colombia, supported by the Narcotics Affair Section of the US Embassy in Colombia. 3 THE TECHNOLOGIES OF DRUG TRAFFICKING: THE NARCOSUBMARINES 39

Smugglers also use multi-mode transportation shipments with various methods from the source to the final destination, often using acombination of small fishing or passenger boats or go-fast boats and refuelling at open sea. This method requires complex strategic and logistical flexibility, which implies the coordination of efforts across loosely tied individuals accom- plishing specific tasks. Therefore, smugglers use heavily transited areas that police cannot intervene without interrupting the flow of commerce. This combination of means enables smugglers to avoid moving vast amounts of cocaine in solo runs, thus maximising security and reducing loses. By the turn of the century, go-fast boats were considered the main threat concerning drug smuggling using maritime routes. Smugglers had a logistically sophisticated arrangement to move the cocaine from Colombia to the United States using faster boats with speeds up to 60 mph and establishing gas stations at open sea to guarantee a continuous supply of petrol to the ships. Smugglers using go-fast vessels developed considerable knowledge of evasive movements, with speed as a primary form of stealth and continuously introducing improvements to their boats. The vast majority of the go-fast boats seized have been off-the-shelf ships. Smugglers also have built their own fast boats and increasingly modify them to protect the cargo. Placing a hull on top of the boats serves two purposes, shielding the cocaine from the water and gaining a marginal aerodynamic advantage. Go-fast boats, if refuelled, could carry their cargo from the Colombian coasts to their final destination, often Central American countries, or deliver the illicit drugs at open sea, usually to a bigger boat. Said vessels can carry between 2 and 5 tons of cocaine, and a crew of three to five people, who typically have communications systems and GPS trackers with them. Smugglers use a combination of solutions for the procurement of boats, buying from vendors, second hand, tinkering, repurposing, and building their own ships. A wide diversity of go-fast artefacts can be found, ranging from 7.62 m and two 200-hp engines with a speed of up to 25 knots to 10.9-m go-fast boats with three to five 200-hp engines that reach speeds up to 50 knots. The flows of illicit drugs are transported using a wide variety of artefacts with different levels of stealthiness that require different socio-technical arrangements. Smugglers’ efforts demonstrate resilience to interdiction efforts and show different variants of ‘learning by trying’ when they improve and modify logistical arrangements and components to correct 40 J. GUERRERO C. difficulties and ‘learning by using’ when they improve the artefacts or systems of objects they previously implemented (Fleck, 1994). Academic literature on drug smuggling, as well as LEAs and the military, often portraits the availability of different methods of transport as shifts, generations, changes, new techniques, and the novelty of the transport methods used by smugglers; moreover, according to it, success in controlling one method of transport paved the way for the appearance of a new one. To understand the process of innovation in outlaw contexts, it is essential to take into account the continuous entry and exit of players. In the binary interdiction/evasion, the presence of a prey/predator dynamic type of interaction should consider that movement and attachments are not linear or sequential but capable of rotating back and forth. Different groups are attempting to solve problems as they are presented to them characterising those non-linear occurrences. The process by which smugglers can combine existing artefacts, materials, and technologies offers exciting opportunities for the study of the diffusion of technologies. It demonstrates that complex technologies can be generated without the intervention of a unifying policy, which is unrelated to the law of increasing returns. The wide variety of resulting combinations that outlaw innovation produces stems from an iterative process within particularly successful rings of smugglers and as result of the continuous entry and exit of smuggling groups. New groups provide the illicit drug transportation cycle with new ideas and new ways to understand risks. The actions of dispersed players account for the dynamism of the binary interdiction/evasion in the War on Drugs (WoD). Outlaw innovation can be related to what some academics refer to as democratisation of innovation (von Hippel, 2005) and a growing understanding of the importance of users in product modification and technology development. The case of smuggling technologies underscores the capacity of ‘outlaw innovators’ to produce working artefacts across diverse geographies and constraints. Drug smuggling technologies feature interesting combinations of old and new technologies, for example, a primitive ‘panga’ (a traditional fishing boat) equipped with cutting-edge communication and positioning systems, a process that resembles what Edgerton describes as creole technologies (2007). The insight of Science and Technology Studies (STS) allows to overcome many of the metaphors in use to explain innovation in the binary interdiction/evasion (such as ‘cat and mouse’ and ‘balloon effect’) by introducing nuanced explanations of 3 THE TECHNOLOGIES OF DRUG TRAFFICKING: THE NARCOSUBMARINES 41 the process of innovation without coordinated or centralised efforts by users at the fringes of society in a continuously changing environment. As a result, narcosubs (or narcosubmarines) exemplify the innovative dynamics of outlaw users in the WoD.

Variation and Dispersion in Narcosubmarines’ Design After several months of intelligence gathering, the Pacific Task Force was able to consolidate an intelligence package regarding the approximate location of a semisubmersible vessel. The Commander of the force and his staff planned the operation and sent an experienced team to locate the narcosub. They had to arrive at the precise moment when the cocaine was being stocked up in the narcosub to be able to capture not only the vessel but the drug smugglers and the cocaine. The captain and lieutenant in charge knew how difficult it would be to find the artefact; they had already participated in various similar successful operations… But after weeks of a continuous search in the mangroves and many mosquito bites later, still no sign of any illegal activity… ‘We had the intelligence information!’, says the commander, ‘so we kept looking, but while we were there looking for it, controlling possible exit routes, it set sail’. The commander of the operation received information that the narcosub was already at open sea, stranded some 60 miles from the coast and the crew was asking to be rescued. ‘After that, we spent about 24 more hours trying to find the vessel. Finally an American airplane was able to detect it… But when we got there it was already empty, with the crew just waiting to be rescued.’

This story summarises some of the critical issues regarding the use of submersible and semisubmersible artefacts by Colombian drug smugglers and the efforts of the military (specifically the Colombian Navy and Coast Guard Unit) to thwart the sailing of the narcosubs. This episode, as well as the history of narcosubs and other drug smuggling artefacts (such as go-fast boats and cargo containers), clearly shows that users facing barriers (such as geographic isolation and continuous chasing) can manufacture complex pieces of technology. The academic literature dealing with technology in the WoD has explained the dynamics of the process of innovation in illicit drug smuggling as the result of strategic decision making by drug smugglers prior to their operations; such narratives normally place the agency only on one side of the binary interdiction/evasion, and the other side reacts to it. Designing, building, and using narcosubs not only corresponds to a push/ pull process (as interpreted by the academic literature so far); instead, it 42 J. GUERRERO C. may be explained as the result of dispersed peer innovation. The constant adaptation of both sides of the binary has resulted in high variation in artefacts, especially on the smugglers’ side. Hyysalo and Usenyuk (2015) introduced the concept of dispersed peer innovation as an alternative explanation of the process of evolution of a complex artefact; according to it, users retain control over invention, modification, diversification, building, and maintenance. Outlaw innovation is affected by several constraints (such as the illegality of its activities) which limit the availability of materials and impose difficulties on the transport of such materials to building sites. The study of the design, construction, and use of submersible and semisubmersible fits into a growing number of academic studies on users’ capacity to innovate, and it also expands the literature in this field to cover instances where innovation is affected by the illegality of its activities. Faced with many different constraints both from their internal organisation and their interaction with the environment (Kauffman & Macready, 1995), smugglers are left with alternative locally optimal negotiated solutions to transport illicit drugs. Innovation Studies and STS have stressed in the importance of users in the process of innovation, demonstrating users’ capacity not only to intro- duce minor changes and modifications but also to shape habits, technologies, organisations, cultural values, regulations, the behaviour of other practitioners, or modify the initial purpose of the equipment (Hyysalo, 2009; Hyysalo & Usenyuk, 2015; Lüthje, 2004; Lüthje, Herstatt, & von Hippel, 2005). Innovation Studies have often emphasised the mechanisms through which developments by innovative users have made their way to the market (Voss, 2010). A recent work by Hyysalo and Usenyuk has shown the capacity of users to create complex technologies and master all aspects of such machines, despite attempts by manufacturers to take over (Hyysalo & Usenyuk, 2015). Unruly users have also demonstrated their capacity to innovate, adapting practices in the face of prosecution from law enforcement agencies (LEAs) and the military, and revealing the importance of antagonistic relations in technological change (Dolnik, 2007; Jordan & Taylor, 1998; Söderberg, 2017; Taylor, 1999). Narcosubmarines, drug subs, narco semisubmersibles, self-propelled semisubmersibles (SPSS), or simply narcosubs are custom-made maritime vessels utilised by Colombian drug traffickers and developed with the purpose of smuggling illicit drugs into the US market. The term narcosub encompasses a diversity of artefacts, including semisubmersible and fully submersible vessels characterised by the use of marine diesel engines, 3 THE TECHNOLOGIES OF DRUG TRAFFICKING: THE NARCOSUBMARINES 43 a rudimentary refrigeration system, no facilities, and a valve that is activated in case of being captured by law enforcement agencies or the military which allows water to fill the artefact and sink the vessel. Narcosubs are not made to last, as smugglers mostly discard such vessels after com- pleting their one-trip journey.4 Smugglers have been using narcosubs since as early as 1993, but most arrests have been made since 2005. In 1995, Colombian agencies and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reported the use of an artefact that was similar to a go-fast boat but capable of submerging under the waves to hide from the radar (Hohnson, 1995). Narcosubs are hard to detect and track down because they do not generate emissions once they have departed, and as they move farther away from the coast smugglers’ chances to succeed in their journey increase. Narcosubs have set sail from the deserted coast in the north of Colombia, unpoliced areas in the Gulf of Urabá, and the mangroves of the south Colombian Pacific coast; the Colombian police have also found several in construction near populated areas. Each one of those artefacts is built to move between one and ten tons of cocaine, and their construction has demonstrated usability in different conditions of the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Narcosubs are slower than other transport methods used by drug smugglers, reaching up to 12 knots per hour, but they provide smugglers the capacity to travel long distances with increased cargo capacity and stealth. Figures on how many have been built, used, and re-used, are difficult to obtain; some estimate that only 14% of narcosubs are stopped (Mackey, 2010) and the DEA calculates 20% (Diálogo, 2009). According to the State Department’s 2010 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, narcosubs may have hauled 423 metric tons of cocaine in 2008 into the United States. Data from the Colombian Navy indicate that, by 2013, 83 narcosubs (Fig. 3.1) and 98.2 tons of cocaine had been seized, as well as 22 makeshift shipyards. This number encompasses semisubmersible, submersible, and artefacts and it reflects an increase in the number of seizures since 2005. But we do not have, and probably will never have, the numbers of those that have been sunk. Most narcosubs have been found in the Pacific Ocean (approximately 78%, 64 artefacts) and 20%, in the Caribbean Sea.

4 Some interpretations of the technical aspects of these machines, however, indicate their long-time use, such as multiple layers of paint, rust, and corrosion. 44 J. GUERRERO C.

20 20

15 14 14

10 9 8 6 5 33 2 1 11 1 0 1993 1994 1995 2000 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Fig. 3.1 Number of narcosubs captured by Colombian and US LEAs and military, 1993–2013

The high number of seizures of these artefacts illustrates the popularity of this transport method among drug smugglers, and it shows different solutions to solve problems (such as floatability, stealth, propulsion, and access to materials). Furthermore, several combinations of off-the-shelf solutions and hull designs have been adopted by builders, thus providing drug smuggling groups with very different machines. Regarding cargo capacity, there is a wide variation in these artefacts from 1 to 10 tons of illicit drugs. Features that are important in some models are disregarded in others, and the ones found in different models are dissimilar in terms of design and materials (e.g., the ventilation of engines using ‘gooseneck’ tubes). The construction of the hull also presents a variety of materials. Some narcosubs are made of a combination of wood and glass fibre, others are a mixture of wood and steel, and yet others are built with steel or Kevlar. A critical issue that separates these artefacts from other user-driven innovations is the fact that builders and owners (or owners of the illicit cargo) are not usually members of the crew. Early trials of the artefacts are carried out by the builders, but sailors are brought to the departure point when the artefact is being loaded; at that point, they get familiarised with the machine and receive instructions about its destination. Under such circumstances, sailors recruited based on kinship or because of their skills have to strike a balance between trust and the fragility of the vehicles (Usenyuk, Whalen, & Hyysalo, 2016). The fact that crews have nicknamed 3 THE TECHNOLOGIES OF DRUG TRAFFICKING: THE NARCOSUBMARINES 45 these artefacts ‘water coffins’ exemplifies the harsh conditions inside and the costs of failure. Sailors’ abilities and knowledge to solve problems regarding navigational issues and engine failures are critical, not only to fulfil their task but also to safeguard their own lives. Their varied designs and manufacture practices (materials and shapes) suggest a combination of formalised knowledge in some cases, local knowledge, and navigational skills. The latter two are quite common in the areas where the narcosubs are built and sail from, places where fishers have traditionally built their boats and tinkered with engines due to a lack of repair shops nearby. Navigational skills are also fairly common in those areas, and the use of GPS complements traditional dead reckoning naviga- tion methods. The ‘pick-and-mix’ strategy users implement to create ‘configurational technology’ adapted to their needs (Fleck, 1994) is a process of recombination in which existing components are adopted, modified, and/or recombined to create new forms customised to meet outlaw users’ requirements, or bricolage (Büscher, Gill, Mogensen, & Shapiro, 2001). These patterns of dispersed peer innovation (Hyysalo & Usenyuk, 2015), enabled by the recombination of existing materials and knowledge, pave the way to the creation of ‘hybrid’ artefacts (which can be found in two different forms, off-the-shelf boats covered with fibreglass or with other materials) and new narcosub designs (which represent a ‘flexible techno-meme’) used by different groups as generic solutions to transport significant amounts of illicit drugs.

The Evolution of Narcosubs The narcosubs seized from Colombian drug smugglers from 1993 to 2015, while in construction or in sailing, demonstrate a combination of materials, designs, and building techniques that indicate various approaches preferred by drug smugglers to solve the problem of transporting significant amounts of illicit drugs. Outlaw users benefit from the pattern of dispersed peer innovation (Hyysalo & Usenyuk, 2015), in which the design and construction of these vessels, not bound by standardised procedures, profit from the possibilities of creating designs with high degrees of flexibility and exploring the different aspects of the idea of a narcosub. Outlaw innovators mix locally available knowledge of traditional boat building with off-the-shelf technologies. Whether drug smugglers used narcosubs before 1993 will remain unknown. The history of the development of narcosubs is still elusive and 46 J. GUERRERO C. different versions are told. A heroic account of Pablo Escobar’s enterprise attributes the ‘invention’ of this artefact to his ingenuity to transport drugs. Escobar supposedly developed the idea after watching a James Bond movie. According to that story, a Russian and an English engineer were hired to design the submarines while Pablo’s brother took care of the electric circuits (Escobar & Fisher, 2009). However, this is not the only case of such claim; in an autobiography, a retired drug smuggler also maintained that the ‘Cali Cartel’ invented narcosubs, but this was done as part of the link between that group and ‘Mexican Cartels’ (Montoya, 2007). Other narratives establish the ‘Cali Cartel’ as the source of the idea of using submersible methods to transport illicit drugs; that group is said to have initially tried to buy fully made submarines from the former Soviet Union. Such story explains the narcosub as part of an alliance, or a confir- mation of the alliance, between the ‘Cartel’ and the ‘Russian Mob’. The submarine was to be used disguised as an oceanographic research vessel (Navarro, 1997). In another account, the submarine was not bought from the Russians but built with the help of the Russian mob; besides, the builders were two Russian engineers and an American who was in charge of the design and construction (Chepesiuk, 2003; Darling, 2000). According to yet another version, an existing friendship between a Colombian drug smuggler and a Russian was key to the design and development of the Facatativá submarine (Semana, 2003). The first documented use of narcosubs dates from 1993. On May 22, near the Island of Providence, a semisubmersible vessel about 7 m long with a cargo capacity between 1 and 2 tons of cocaine and a two-man crew was seized; it was dubbed the San Andrés Narcosub or Laura. Although not fully submersible, it could control its direction and depth, and it reached speeds under 8 knots (Policia Nacional, n.d.; Semana, 2011). In 1994, three distinct narcosubs were found in different places of the Colombian Caribbean Coast: one in construction, another one in a shipyard, and a third one aground near the coast. The first one was located near the town of Turbo in the area of the Gulf of Urabá. It had a metallic structure; it was partly covered with fiberglass and propelled by a diesel engine and two electric motors. The second one was discovered in a dry shipyard in Barranquilla while being repaired; the then Commander of the Navy in the Caribbean described it as ‘some boat with a shell’ (El Tiempo, 1994a, 1994b). Seized in 1994, the third narcosub was almost 10 m long and named Tayrona after the beach on the northern Caribbean Coast where it was found; it was made of fiberglass on top of a wooden hull and 3 THE TECHNOLOGIES OF DRUG TRAFFICKING: THE NARCOSUBMARINES 47 it used a 6-hp diesel truck engine to sail. In addition to three boat propellers, it incorporated a muffler and exhaust pipes taken from a truck. An arrangement of air boxes and fifty 25-kg lead weights mounted on the hull were used to control floatability. This narcosub also had an air compressor that allowed the exchange of air between the inside and the outside of the artefact and a power plant. Such hybrid artefact carried a marine camera and monitor that could be watched by the crew from a metallic beach chair nailed to the floor of the narcosub. The cylindrical metallic structure reappeared in 1995. That year, in a shipyard downtown Cartagena, the Colombian Navy seized a nearly completed artefact. The 11-m long and 2-m wide aluminium structure was covered in fiberglass; it had three compartments, sonar, ‘sophisticated communication equipment’, and a 100-hp diesel engine. According to Navy reports, it could be submerged up to 20 m and carry 6 tons of cocaine. Others estimated the cargo capacity to be only 1.5 tons. Said reports also indicate that, in order to build this vessel, smugglers hired ‘experts’ who produced an artefact with a hydrodynamic design (El Tiempo, 1995a; Ramirez & Bunker, 2015). More reports and eyewitness accounts suggested the existence of a submarine loaded with illicit drugs in La Guajira that sailed to supply the European Market in 1996 (El Tiempo, 1996; Semana, 2003). In 2000, a narcosub with a different design, completed between 30% and 40%, was found in the middle of Los Andes, far from any coast, 323 km (201 mi) from the Pacific Ocean and 449 km (279 mi) from the Caribbean Sea. Named Facatativá after the nearest town, it was 30 m long, 3.5 m wide and had three modules and a double hull; moreover, it was designed to be fully submersible. Assessments of the capacity of this design varied widely because, as Boudeau points out (2007), the interpretation of capacity and intent are co-defined. While some interpretations highlight that it would have had a range of up to 700 nautical miles (Moore, 2001), others report that it would have been able to navigate up to 2000 nautical miles with submerging capabilities from 10 m to 20 m (Ramirez & Bunker, 2015). There are various claims about its cargo capacity, with figures between 10 and 15 tons or 150 and 200 tons; that is to say, almost a third of the potential production of cocaine in Colombia. No narcosub was seized between 2001 and 2003; nevertheless, a DEA report claimed that at least four of these vessels were able to sail, during those years, to the Mexican Coast and deliver up to 16 tons of cocaine (El Tiempo, 2008). Incontestable proof of the use of the narcosubs appeared 48 J. GUERRERO C. in 2005. Since that year, variations in design, building places, and materials indicate a new period, marking the end of what can be called an early stage of experimentation. The first narcosub found in the Pacific Coast of Colombia was seized on March 24, 2005, in the mangroves of the region of Nariño. Said vessel was built with fiberglass on a wooden hull, it used a single marine diesel engine and one propeller, and its estimated cargo capacity was between 6 and 10 tons. Also, in 2005, the first ‘narco- torpedo’ was discovered. These artefacts are basically a cylindrical steel tube with stabilising fins and a beacon. Narco-torpedoes are towed behind a powered boat and can submerge from 20 m to 30 m. If the boat is inter- cepted, the narco-torpedo is released and the beacon is activated. The evolution of narcosubs is presented in the media and official accounts as a radical innovation, independent from other forms of illicit drug transport. In such views, narcosubs mostly ‘replace’ other forms of transport or are seen as part of a ‘generation’ with incremental innovation in propulsion (e.g., from one to two engines, changes in stealthiness, colour, or strategies to diffuse the heat signature) (e.g., Diálogo, 2009; Lesmes Duque, 2005). In fact, the design, construction, and use of narcosubs are entwined with other forms of maritime drug transport. Only a few short steps separate submersible from semisubmersible methods of transportation and go-fast boats from fishing boats, and such transition is possible because the necessary knowledge to build said artefacts is available in the relatively small areas where narcosubmarines operate. The narcosubs interdicted between 1993 and 2000 varied widely in shape, materials, and building techniques. However, since 2005, the vast majority of seized artefacts (either while being built or on their way to their destination) was concentrated on three areas of Colombia. Two of them are in the Caribbean region and one in the South Pacific coast, specifically in the northern sector of La Guajira, in Urabá and Darién areas of the Atlantic Coast, and the on South Pacific Coast, specifically in the Nariño department. La Guajira has a long history of contraband that predates the modern Colombian state and, until recently, illegal activities played an open central role in the inhabitants’ lives, who actively pre- vented the deployment of state control and even demanded their right to contraband (González-Plazas, 2008). It was a key area from the mid- 1970s until the mid-1980s, the time of the boom of marihuana smuggling known as ‘bonanza marimbera’.5 Professional goods smugglers

5 Marihuana bonanza. 3 THE TECHNOLOGIES OF DRUG TRAFFICKING: THE NARCOSUBMARINES 49 established contacts with American marihuana drug smugglers and buy- ers to distribute the marihuana harvested in the nearby Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and provided their knowledge of smuggling maritime routes and hiding places in the Caribbean. The South Pacific region of Nariño and the area of Urabá also have a long history of smuggling practices. In short, these territories are characterised by traditional smuggling, the relative absence of the stage agencies, and no shortage of knowledge about maritime issues, such as tinkering with engines, locally repairing boats, and the coexistence of different maritime smuggling methods. The areas where narcosubs depart are characterised by their relative distance from the central government and a weak presence of the state; besides, they are highly unpoliced due, in part, to the persistence of multiple violent non-state actors. Since colonial times, these border areas have also been places of import and export of both legal and illegal goods, and specialised groups have dominated contraband because, in said borderlands, legality does not coincide with legitimacy (Thoumi, 1995; Van Schendel, 2005).

Classifying Narcosubs Although such artefacts can be classified according their immersion capacity, most narcosubs do not submerge: semisubmersible artefacts and submersible artefacts Lichtenwald, Steinhour, and Perri (2012) and Ramirez and Bunker (2015). Semisubmersibles can submerge up to three-quarters of their structure using a variety of strategies for that purpose (lead, stones, etc.); in turn, submersibles immerse their hull completely. This classification can be expanded based on the type of construction to encompass the diversity and evolution of narcosubs and highlight further differences in materials, building places, and a series of micro-innovations.

I. Semisubmersibles:

1. Low Profile Vessels (LPVs): These self-propelled vessels are capable of lowering their surface profile while controlling their depth and direction; however, they cannot be fully submerged. With an estimated cost of USD 1 million, they can carry between 2 and 8 tons, depending on the design, and are built using a go-fast boat or any other small boat usually covered with fiberglass. 50 J. GUERRERO C.

2. Semisubmersibles: Also known as self-propelled semisubmersibles (SPSS), vessels built from scratch, generally using a wooden or aluminium frame, and covered with either fiberglass or aluminium sheets. With an increased cargo capacity between 6 and 10 tons of cocaine, they implement a wide variety of designs, hydrodynamics, exhaust systems, refrigeration systems, and shapes, which produces clearly different artefacts.

II. Submersibles:

3. Torpedoes: These cylindrical artefacts made of steel are equipped with fins but are not self-propelled. Instead, they are towed by a fishing boat and, while being hauled, they can fully submerge. Torpedoes can transport up to two tons of cocaine, and their cost has been estimated between USD 250,000 and 500,000.

4. Submarines: The submersion capacity of these vessels is contested, but they can be described as artefacts designed and built with the aim of achieving full hull submersion. They are self-propelled, use a snorkel and cameras as visual aids, and are equipped with a radar system and other navigational technologies. Their more sophisticated design suggests specialised forms of knowledge. Besides, their cost has been estimated between USD 2 and 4 million and their cargo capacity at around 10 tons of narcotics (Fig. 3.2).

The arrangement of many of the essential features of narcosubs suggests a process of learning by trial and error and attempts to find the optimal solution. More specifically, examples of torpedoes show differences in the configuration of the fins, likely as a result of experimentation with different strategies to guarantee submersion of the artefact while towed, while others also present changes in the ballast systems and weight distribution. The design and procurement of propellers varies as well. While some low-profile vessels and semisubmersibles use new or second-hand propellers from available manufacturers because they are readily available in nearby shops, other users prefer custom-made propellers. Hydrodynamics, exhaust systems, refrigeration systems, coatings, and materials vary greatly, and it can be argued that some reach a high degree of sophistication in semisubmersibles. Characteristically, in LPV and semisubmersible models, the cockpit and ‘gooseneck’ ventilation tubes remain 3 THE TECHNOLOGIES OF DRUG TRAFFICKING: THE NARCOSUBMARINES 51

Fig. 3.2 Exemplars of LPV top left, SPSS top right, submersible bottom left, and torpedo bottom right. (Source: Author) visible above water. The number and material of ‘gooseneck’ ventilation pipes (which allow the intake of air for the engine room and the cabin) vary. Builders of narcosubs coat the exhaust pipes on top with different fibres in an attempt to reduce the heat emitted by the powerful diesel engines, thus making detection by infrared detectors more difficult. Designers have also tried to apply different solutions to hamper detection techniques by shielding the narcosubs. Indeed, some ships have a lead cover to minimise their heat signature and, therefore, infrared detection, while in others the shielding is made of different asbestos fibres, and a recovered vessel even included cathodic protection using zinc blocks. In short, narcosub builders attempt to reduce the risk of detection through a combination of methods, which further diversify the artefacts. One aspect that remains somewhat similar among self-propelled narcosubs is the distribution of compartments. In self-propelled narcosubs (SPSS and LPVs), the engine room is located at the rear of the artefact, with a small cabin space in the middle, storage space in the front, and fuel tanks at the stern and the bow (Fig. 3.3). Another feature of narcosubs that seems to be present in most variants of this artefact is a valve that allows water to flow inside the artefact and, in fact, sink the artefact and any evidence in case of being detected by LEAs or the Navy, thus using the destruction of one’s artefact as a tactical 52 J. GUERRERO C.

Upper View

Fuel Fuel Engine Room Storage Space Fuel Fuel Fuel

Profile

Fuel Fuel Engine Room Fuel Storage Space

Fig. 3.3 A typical narcosub room distribution move (Papadopoulos & Tsianos, 2013). The crew abandon the vessel wearing life vests or by inflating a small inflatable boat and, restoring to a long tradition of sailors’ honour of helping other sailors at sea, they turn a smuggling activity into a shipwreck and the interdiction into a search and rescue operation. This practice extended to artefacts built in the Pacific and the Caribbean coasts, but after the anti-submersible act was passed these occurrences decreased because said legislation allowed visual evidence to be sufficient to prosecute the crew of the artefact for trafficking offenses. This overview of the evolution of the narcosubs provides an introduction to reflect on the process of innovation in outlaw environments. Narcosubs emerged as a user-driven solution to the problem of transporting significant amounts of illicit drugs while evading state action, from an initial stage of experimenting and prototyping to the dynamics of dispersed peer innovation (Hyysalo & Usenyuk, 2015). However, this process has been carried out by different groups with little incentive to collaborate with each other, which resulted in a wide variation of artefacts that can be divided into two groups: submersible and semisubmersible vessels. Being able to configure a complex artefact using a mix and match approach and producing hybrids (in which locally available pieces and knowledge are blended with off-the-shelf solutions and expert engineering knowledge) fits into some of the innovation patterns found by Hyysalo and Usenyuk (2015) and Usenyuk et al. (2016) in their study of transport in the Russian far north. As a result of this pattern of dispersed peer 3 THE TECHNOLOGIES OF DRUG TRAFFICKING: THE NARCOSUBMARINES 53 innovation (where antagonist and non-collaborative relationships are also crucial characteristics) smugglers and outlaw innovators (as in the process of adaptation of biological entities in which they face many conflicting constraints both from their internal organisation and their interaction with the environment) are left with many alternative locally optimal compro- mised solutions (Kauffman & Macready, 1995). Competition with other smugglers, as well as with the state, also promotes innovation. Fleck’s (2000) concept of artefact-activity couple further helps us to understand the way particular innovators (specifically builders of variants of narcosubs) were able, through trial and error, to master the construction prin- ciples of narcosubs and introduced minor variations into their models. The variety and innovation (as well as the interpretations of those innovations) of narcosubs also result in co-evolutionary dynamics in which the consequences of the decisions of illicit actors (competing with each other and against the state) continually destabilise the landscape and trigger a situation in which multiple players try adaptive innovations.

How to Build a Narcosub: Underground Knowledge and Outlaw Innovation Voss (2007) studied the way innovation in highly stigmatised, hidden, and illegal environments (in which users often gain some form or ‘underground or forbidden knowledge’) facilitates some aspects of knowledge exchange while it constrains others due to the stigma of participation. Most narcosubs are built in border areas where boundaries between legality and illegality often have a different logic than the one promoted by the state, state-sanctioned laws are scarce, and kinship relationships can be an incentive to participate in ‘illegal activities’. Kleemans and de Poot (2008) introduced the concept of Social Opportunity Structure to emphasise the importance of social ties, work relations, leisure activities, and life events to have access to ‘organised crime’ activities. In turn, other researchers who adopted a criminological perspective highlighted certain skills as factors that may contribute to people’s involvement in ‘organised crime’ activities, even if those abilities are acquired in professional settings (Van Koppen & De Poot, 2013; van Koppen, de Poot, Kleemans, & Nieuwbeerta, 2010). Benson and Decker (2010) argued for the existence of some specialisation within drug smuggling organisations, thus implying that different members of the organisation possess different skills and 54 J. GUERRERO C. individual abilities. Specialisation also involves some degree of coordination and interdependence between the units in the group. The design, construction, and use of narcosubs are sometimes assumed to controlled by ‘cartels’ who hire ‘experts’, such as naval engineers who then recruit builders. This notion is common in journalistic reports, while the idea of ‘Transnational Organised Crime Networks’ is used in other reports and policy documents to explain the widespread use of said artefacts (e.g., Hernandez, Galeano, & Escobar, 2012; Rico, 2013). Narcosub builders are often independent groups that can contact, or be contacted by, drug smugglers to build the artefacts according to customers’ needs and specifications (Policia Nacional, n.d.). There are multiple forms of knowledge and relationships in a narcosub building organisation. While some aspects are designed by ‘specialists’ (such as electrical and mechanical engineers), others are left to people with local knowledge (such as fiberglass handling and coating). Furthermore, at least in this type of organisation, another individual (in this case, the provider of the fiberglass) also plays the role of ‘supervisor’ guaranteeing that, in fact, the vessel is correctly waterproofed. Other individuals are in charge of the logistics and buying and carrying the materials and personnel to the shipyards. Finally, some individuals are hired as crewmen. Zaitch (2002) indicated the presence of some overlapping between kinship and friendship structures in criminal organisations that smuggle drugs into the Netherlands. In the construction of a narcosub kinship, friendship, family, acquaintances, and referrals play a role as well. Kinship relationships can also be found in other groups, such as during the so-called era of ‘cartels’. Under such circumstances, underground knowledge on how to build said artefacts can be shared with group members in those rather informal associations. Builders spend several months sharing small rooms, just meters away from where narcosubs are built. Márquez Pérez (2014) has documented the existence of knowledge about building artisanal boats in Caribbean coastal areas that is informally transmitted and individuals with the capacity to create models or build an artisanal boat if they are given a model. Narcosubs are built in makeshift jungle workshops in Urabá and the Pacific Coast, and the ones found in La Guajira are completed in tents in the middle of semi-deserted areas. In these workshops, builders create the moulds, mix the resins, install the engines (using nearby trees as pulleys), and conduct flotation and waterproof testing. Narcosub builders operating in the South Pacific area also take advantage of the tidal cycles’ regime to schedule the operation of narcosubs (which implies the 3 THE TECHNOLOGIES OF DRUG TRAFFICKING: THE NARCOSUBMARINES 55 application of local knowledge) and an intricate mangrove labyrinth to transport the personnel and materials needed to build the artefact. Locals are also members of a crew that includes an experienced seaman who takes the role of captain. The characterisation of narcosub builders and the description of their relationships and work context demonstrate that, in order to understand the diffusion of drug traffickers’ technologies, it is essential to shed light on the forms of underground knowledge they require to construct narcosubs. Including such topics allows to overcome the shortcomings of an analysis in which interdiction is the only explanation for smugglers’ innovation. Outlaw innovators can integrate characteristics of complex organisations (such as some degree of hierarchical structure and specialisation with informal interactions) in order to create a complex technology even in the absence of established arenas of interaction, as in the case of the Karakat (Hyysalo & Usenyuk, 2015) and early rural cars in the United States (Kline & Pinch, 1996). This suggests that sometimes arenas of interaction and exchange of information are not necessary for outlaw innovation.

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How Do You Catch Drug Smugglers in the Open Sea?

Abstract As the seas have been increasingly used by drug smugglers, the Colombian Navy has played a central role in the interdiction of illicit drug flows. The author provides evidence of the many spaces in which the technologies and practices for interdiction are shaped. Long-term plans are an attempt to crystalise the role of the Navy as an able agency in the War on Drugs, there, visions and images of the enemy are entangled. During a Maritime Interdiction Operation (MIO), the Navy personnel deploy diverse forms of knowledge. The patrol boat is key, and its qualities and characteristics are constantly reviewed and adjusted by the Navy personal in the field according to the perception of the enemy capabilities. Intelligence is crucial for the Navy actions, and helps to reduce uncertainty. The author argues that Ignorance Studies are useful to understand the paradoxical results of the Navy actions.

Keywords Maritime Interdiction Operations • Intelligence • Ignorance Studies • War on Drugs

The open sea, nearly midnight. Several miles away from the Colombian Caribbean coast, two Coast Guard boats chase a go-fast boat, presumably loaded with tons of cocaine neatly packaged. The coast guard personnel feel at a disadvantage because they do not know how the smugglers will react. Thus, they have to wait for the smugglers’ response now that two new Coast Guard

boats joined the chase. They feel the adrenaline bursting through their veins. They have information about the name of the smugglers’ boat, a good idea of its point of departure, and approximately how much cocaine it is transporting. What is the new young commander going to order? Is he going to abandon the pursuit? Is he going to order the Coast Guard to follow the suspects at full speed as they think they should? Now they feel somehow safer using this ‘new’ boat, the Midnight Express; it has more shelter if smugglers decide to shoot, but will this new boat be true to its promise? Will it turn as fast as they need it to? Will it help them to catch the smugglers? Are the boats easy to manoeuvre at high speed? They are using these boats for the first time in an interdiction operation though, of course, they have completed several trials. However, there have not been enough trials because resources are scarce and they cannot waste money on gas. What will the smugglers do? Will they surrender? Will they try to evade? Will they try to crash the boats? They decided on the latter, colliding twice with Coast Guard boats, but the new boat withstands the pounding. The smugglers try to flee away and throw the cocaine overboard. Then they head for the shore, but they end up tangled in a thick bush of thorny plants and are finally caught by the Coast Guard.

The events detailed above are an account of the first-time personnel from the Colombian Coast Guard used Midnight Express boats to catch drug smugglers. They provide relevant evidence to understand the dynamics of the binary interdiction/evasion. One side of the binary are the practices, artefacts, plans, and actions of law enforcement agencies (LEAs) and the military to stop the flow of illicit drugs; on the other side, smugglers’ plans, devices, actions, and strategies to evade state control. This binary is not only one of opposition; instead, it operates in terms that create a con- tinuum rather than dichotomies. Drug smugglers have innovated in the use of different routes and transport methods. A wide array of smuggling methods has been extensively documented, especially in journalistic reports highlighting the ingenuity of Colombian drug smugglers. The efforts of the Colombian Government to disrupt the drug market have been focused on strategies aimed at reducing the supply of drugs and coca plant fields through aerial fumigation or manual eradication, capturing ringleaders, and interdicting cocaine (Másmela & Tickner, 2017). Smuggling rings have attempted to avoid state control by deploying various forms of local knowledge and tactical–logistical knowledge (Martin, 2012). The Colombian Government, supported and encouraged by its US counterpart, has developed several strategies to thwart smugglers’ efforts; they include creating specialised law enforcement units (such as 4 HOW DO YOU CATCH DRUG SMUGGLERS IN THE OPEN SEA? 63 the Colombian Antinarcotics Police) and extending the involvement of the military to take control of different stages of the production and transport of illicit drugs.1 As a result, they have produced what Moloeznik (2003) describes as ‘Atypical Military Instruments’. The interdiction approach, actions aimed at apprehending smugglers or illicit drugs, is based on the idea that increasing the cost of transport by disrupting the flows of illicit drugs will make drug traffickers abandon the business altogether. Adaptation and substitution are more difficult, and considerably more money is lost at this stage than during the earlier phases of the drug trafficking chain (Echeverry, 2004; Kawell, 2001). As maritime routes and transport methods were considered to be the primary venue used by drug smugglers, the Colombian Government deployed the Navy, specifically the Coast Guard Unit, as a response. This chapter presents an overview of the most significant actions undertaken by the Colombian Navy to fulfil the mission of thwarting the flows if illicit drugs. Although the set of actions performed by the Navy in the War on Drugs (WoD) is not new in the military doctrine, they entailed the definition of new strategic concepts of counter-smugglers warfare, in which intelligence gathering and the deployment of intelligence systems are presented as key elements to disrupt drug smugglers’ routes. Interdiction operations are not planned without intelligence, but ultimately such encounters at sea put drug smuggling vessels against the Navy’s boats.

What’s in a Plan to Catch Drug Smugglers? To plan its long-term involvement in the WoD, the Colombian Navy needs to answer some interrelated questions: What methods are smugglers using to transport illicit drugs? What is the best way to thwart each illicit transport method? What technologies should the Navy procure to catch drug smugglers? What are the best methods to patrol the sea and how can operational success be maximised? What are the short-term and long-term consequences of the Navy’s actions against smugglers, their routes, and transport methods? Since the early years of chasing marihuana smugglers, the Colombian Navy—and particularly the Coast Guard as a specialised unit devoted to

1 The participation of the US military in interdiction operations was sanctioned in 1989 by the National Defence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1989. To know more about the militarisation of the WoD in Latin America, see McDermott (2018). 64 J. GUERRERO C. interdiction operations—has procured vessels and communication systems, developed several plans at different levels, and established agree- ments with other Navies and countries in order to thwart smugglers’ efforts. It is then safe to say that the WoD has shaped the choices the Colombian Navy has made. In those plans, the Colombian Navy has proposed the procurement and deployment of the right tools and strategies to wage the WoD and attempted to integrate its developments with broader policy issues (e.g., the fight against narco-terrorism) by introducing the role of the Navy into the discourse of securitisation (Másmela & Tickner, 2017). Nevertheless, said plans are as technical are they are political. In 1997, Colombia and the United States signed the ‘Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Colombia to suppress illicit traffic by sea’. The agreement allowed the US Navy and Coast Guard to patrol Colombian Caribbean and Pacific maritime areas as well as to carry out joint Maritime Interdiction Operations (MIOs), providing the Colombian Navy and the Coast Guard Unit with tools to professionalise their approach concerning such operations. Moreover, it helped to ease diplomatic tensions between Colombia and the United States because it contributed to demonstrate the Colombian will to control the illicit flows of narcotics. The agreement was central to remove Colombia from the list of countries the US Government considers are not cooperative in their efforts in the WoD, a process known as certi- fication2; furthermore, it implied the full entry of the Colombian Navy into the WoD. It was not until 2006 that the Colombian Navy presented its first operational strategy directly aimed at their efforts in the WoD, entitled Closing the Gap, which was in place until 2015 when the Naval Network Against Drugs replaced it. The objective of said strategy was to complement the general guidelines offered by the 2003–2006 and 2007–2010 Strategic Naval Plans, which were attempts to mobilise discourses around technological solutions and the purchase of new technologies to control the illicit flows and smugglers’ artefacts. The budget of the Colombian

2 The certification is a unilateral decision of the US Government, specifically the executive branch. As a matter of internal policies, the US Government established a series of legal mechanisms through administrative and congressional procedures that require the President to annually provide his/her judgment on the efforts of different countries regarding issues affecting the security of the United States, such as nuclear security, terrorism, and narcotrafficking. 4 HOW DO YOU CATCH DRUG SMUGGLERS IN THE OPEN SEA? 65

Navy grew as a result of financial resources obtained from Plan Colombia (Mejía & Restrepo, 2008; Rochlin, 2011; United States Government Accountability Office, 2008), most of which were earmarked for the improvement of the Navy’s capacity to perform Maritime Interdiction Operations. The US Defence and State Departments contributed USD 89.3 million to improve coastal and riverine interdiction operations in Colombia between 2004 and 2008 (Armada República de Colombia, 2003). Those strategic plans summarise the Navy’s short-term goals regarding the way resources should be allocated and reveal its priorities. These plans provide insights to address several questions: (1) What are the main tasks of the Colombian Navy? (2) Who is the enemy? (3) How should the enemy be faced? And (4) how should resources be deployed? A vital element in all the Navy’s plans is the idea of building a flexible force. The 2003–2006 Plan states: ‘The Navy should have an effective fleet that guarantees success, but it should be a flexible one that can quickly adapt to different operational environments’ (Armada República de Colombia, 2007). The stress on flexibility and adaptability is very much at the forefront in subsequent naval strategic plans. In turn, its 2007–2010 version reads: ‘Flexibility and an adequate, planned and coordinated use of the tools will allow the Navy to confront narcoterrorism in several scenarios simultaneously’ (Armada República de Colombia, 2011). In 2011, the spotlight was on the complexity of the operational environment in order to have a Navy ‘capable of using the flexibly naval power, quickly adapting to ever-changing situations and the dynamic actions of the enemies of the national security’ (Armada República de Colombia, 2011). The 2003 Strategic Plan emphasised communication and intelligence gathering as the main weaknesses of the Navy and stressed the need to attempt to create a new and modern naval force in which information gathering and processing would be the first task. The 2007 and 2011 Plans highlighted the critical role of Maritime Interdiction Operations and both formulated proposals to participate in the control of not only the illicit drug flows but also other stages of the illicit drug market. The 2007 Plan claimed that besides ‘eliminating the flows of drugs and illegal supplies’ through interdictions, the Navy should participate in operations aimed at ‘[neutralizing] groups or individual members by [capturing] or killing them’. It also flagged the destruction of laboratories and seizure of supplies used for processing cocaine as a task of the Navy. In 2011, the Plan pledged to continue fighting against ‘narco-terrorist organisations’, involving the Navy in the control of ‘drug trafficking at all stages of the 66 J. GUERRERO C. illicit drug market’ (Armada República de Colombia, 2015). Strategic Plans are designed to match the broader strategies of the central government and be aligned with the Ministry of Defence’s general objectives. Strategic plans and strategic concepts also include the Navy as a key player in the WoD, stressing the vision of a capable counter-drug agency and, for that purpose, using indicators that quantify successful operations as further proof of the effectiveness of the Navy. Moreover, they emphasise the difficulty of gaining absolute control over the illicit flows by underscoring the vastness of the maritime spaces under the Navy’s control. According to the operational strategy Closing the Gap (2006), the fight against illicit drugs is at the core of the Navy’s goals, merging concerns of traditional borders and security. Said strategy outlines a program of maritime, riverine, and territorial control and interdiction with the specific objective of combatting the production and storage of narcotics and deny- ing drug smugglers the use of maritime, riverine, and land areas as routes for illegal trafficking of narcotics. It also considered the use of naval, aerial, riverine, and terrestrial power in order to control the flows of illicit drugs. This programme aimed to create a shield to prevent smugglers from setting sail and reaching the open sea, and the tools of the traditional Navy (e.g., missile frigates and submarines) were repurposed to participate in operations against drug smugglers. Closing the Gap exemplifies the dis- parities of resources deployed by the Navy to face smugglers’ actions. Figure 4.1 shows the complex socio-technical arrangement to be deployed, according to said strategy, to capture smugglers’ artefacts; it includes satellites, aircraft, war vessels, several stations, patrol vessels, and interceptor vessels. The socio-technical system needed to achieve this vision has been put in place as a result of different learning experiences that have taught the Navy how to procure technology, when and how to interdict, and when to change strategies and adapt to perceived changes in smugglers as well as the macro-environment. In an interdiction operation, commanders and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) combine different kinds of tacit, sophisticated local and formal knowledge (standards and procedures). Successful commanders have not only the right training but also the right knowledge; they must not only know how to carry out an operation but also be aware of the cues that indicate when to stop one. Maritime Interdiction Operations occur in a highly complex setting, where conditions are hardly predictable. Commanders in charge of operations need to make several decisions in a short period, assessing their strengths, 4 HOW DO YOU CATCH DRUG SMUGGLERS IN THE OPEN SEA? 67

HELICOPTER

MARITIM PATROL AIRCRAFT SUBMARINE SURVEILLANCE STATION

SEA PATROL CRAFT

FRIGATE

GO-FAST

INTERCEPTOR

OPERATION SURVEILLANCE CENTRE STATION

Fig. 4.1 A Maritime Interdiction Operation according to Closing the Gap the possibility of success, and the characteristics of the enemy. It is, therefore, a constant balancing act between uncertainty and the imperatives of their task. Although Closing the Gap proposed practical actions for the creation of new coast guard stations and the procurement of new artefacts, strategic plans fall short concerning practical details. Such strategy put forth the rationalisation of resources by planning operations firmly based on intelligence information and the combination of different resources of the Navy—thus, reproducing the central paradox of the binary interdiction/ evasion. Under such circumstances, it is increasingly difficult for actors to differentiate what is created, what is destroyed, what remains, and how to perform their next actions. Smugglers, as well as law enforcement agencies (LEAs) and the military, perform most of their activities in secret, and such secrecy is inherent to the binary interdiction/evasion. Secrecy is also an active part of any war: ‘The whole point of secrecy in this realm is to hide, to feint, to distract, to deny access, and to monopolise information’ 68 J. GUERRERO C.

(Proctor, 2008, p. 19). Rappert notes the importance of configurations of absence and presence and how ‘seeing is a way of not seeing because of what gets left out of the picture formed’ (2015, p. 10). The central role of intelligence, increasingly derived from the Navy’s plans to play its part in the WoD, configures drug smugglers and their actions in a particular way.

Intelligence and Ignorance in the War on Drugs Even if both sides attempt to undertake actions knowing their counterpart’s intentions beforehand (such as smugglers bribing Navy personnel in order to have access to patrol routes planned by the Navy, and the Navy and LEAs intercepting communications and carrying out intelligence operations), it is clear that neither side can obtain perfect information about the intentions of the other. Therefore, both parties need mechanisms that allow them to make sense of the way the ‘absence or presence’ of specific clues indicates possibilities for action. Intelligence gathering is one of the main activities of both drug smugglers and state agencies (Kenney, 2003). The results of intelligence gathering and analysis provide the players of the binary interdiction/evasion with information about how and when to carry out their activities as well as a risk assessment. Decker and Townsend Chapman, nevertheless, demonstrated that the kind of rational risk assessment usually associated with drug traffickers is far from being a common trait among them 2008( ). The empirical material these authors employ provides evidence against the myth of the ‘rational smuggler’ portrayed in the economic literature of drug trafficking and the media. The particular morphology of the binary interdiction/evasion involves numerous drug trafficking groups—using different organisational arrangements and practices, most of them highly flexible (Kenney, 2007; Vellinga, 2004; Zaitch, 2004)—and several state agencies—competing, collaborating, and acting in a continuously changing environment. This configuration results in barriers for intelligence activities on both sides. Enforcement agencies and the military thus create what can be conceptualised as ‘Calculation centres’ ‘where information is created, collected, assembled, transcribed, transported to, simplified and juxtaposed in a single location, where everything that is relevant can be seen’ (Law, 2003, p. 8). El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) was created in 1974 with the goal of gathering and analysing information about drug traffickers’ activities. As a result of the merger between drug trafficking and terrorism, military 4 HOW DO YOU CATCH DRUG SMUGGLERS IN THE OPEN SEA? 69 agencies increased their participation in intelligence gathering activities, bringing along particular sensibilities and concerns (Van Puyvelde, 2016). The Joint Interagency Task Force-South (JIATFS) is in charge of planning and carrying out multiagency operations. Gathering information plays a central role in the activities of the JIATFS, monitoring illicit traffic to thwart smugglers on the move and capturing drug smuggling rings (McLay, 2015). Their activities implement ‘end-to-end mission management’, a cycle that considers the production of intelligence at each step of the chain, that is, cueing, detection, monitoring, interdiction, arrest, prosecution, and more intelligence (Munsing & Lamb, 2011). Colombian law enforcement and military agencies expanded their traditional roles to participate in the dismantling and disruption of the production or transportation of illicit drugs. This implied the redefinition of the role of intelligence for traditional military agencies. Thanks to the creation of the Intelligence Unit in 2006, the Colombian Navy has been able to deploy a sophisticated network of both human and technical information. Inside the Navy, this Unit has the same level of importance of offices such as those of the Chief of Operations or the Chief of Planning, thus reaffirming information collection and intelligence in the role of the Colombian Navy in the WoD. The waters of the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean serve as a canvas that illustrates the complexities of the binary interdiction/evasion. Such spaces are populated by a multitude of drug trafficking networks attempting to evade state control and state agencies trying to prevent smugglers from beginning their journeys or reaching their destination; they include the Colombian Navy, the National Police of Colombia, and the Colombian Air Force, as well as international agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the United States Coast Guard. According to Kenney (2003), an enormous investment in intelligence in the WoD has allowed state agencies to accumulate essential knowledge about the actions of international drug trafficking networks. However, this has also enabled said networks to develop similar adaptation strategies that allow them to operate in hostile environments. Such adaptations should be seen as emer- gent properties of the networks, which are possible in the absence of a central command or authority (Bright & Delaney, 2013) and pose new challenges for intelligence gathering. Sherman Kent (1949), the father of strategic intelligence, proposed the idea that knowledge gained in intelligence activities allows to avoid failure. This approach, nevertheless, could be interpreted as the possibility of acquiring almost perfect knowledge of enemy activities, which would 70 J. GUERRERO C. enable state agencies to act with a high degree of certainty about their actions. Johnson and Jackson (2010) consider that achieving objective knowledge is ideal and argue that intelligence can provide specific critical knowledge, but those in charge of operationalising said intelligence must keep in mind that some degree of uncertainty will remain. The actors in the War on Drugs perceive opportunities to move and act. However, the asymmetry in knowledge, communication failures, and the actions and strategies of several uncoordinated actors give rise to situations in which innovation can mean regression. Decisions under these circumstances are partial and incomplete, and they can be disputed by other actors (Spinardi, 2014). When smugglers set sail, they must face the uncertainty of being identified or detected by the Navy during their trip; for the Navy, the capture of smuggling devices leads to reinterpretations of what the capture means. In such circumstances, the Navy makes attempts to reconcile the localised vision of the commanders with global points of view. When a new transport method is identified and, sometimes, when a specific method disap- pears from the scene, local and central commanders must make decisions about how to interpret these occurrences: Do they mean that resources should be devoted to looking for a particular method from then on? Does a reduction in the capture of a given method reflect a real decrease in its use or have they become more difficult to detect because of smugglers’ innovations? The players in the binary interdiction/evasion need to perform movements and counter-movements designed to deceive the enemy. Even if both parties take action to know each other’s intentions in advance, it is clear that neither can acquire perfect information about their plans. Therefore, both sides need mechanisms to make sense of their rivals’ actions and the ‘absence or presence’ of specific clues, which indicates possible situations that can be seen as a call to action. Ignorance takes many forms (Gross & McGoey, 2015) and several authors have shown the implications for security and intelligence studies (Rappert & Balmer, 2015; Vogel et al., 2016). Intelligence activities are carried out in conditions of ignorance, and this leads to what Vogel et al. (2016) call a surplus of ambiguity, in which performativity and attempts to build sources of authority are paramount. Actors can strengthen their own authority by adopting and accepting their own ignorance, underlining that they are the ones authorised to recognise what is known or not known about the enemy, which complicates the 4 HOW DO YOU CATCH DRUG SMUGGLERS IN THE OPEN SEA? 71 situation and makes it more difficult to distinguish between produced uncertainty and non-knowledge (Vogel et al., 2016). Therefore, the Navy has reduced the uncertainty that arises from its actions in two interrelated ways: (1) The Navy builds images of its enemies; its staff emphasises the innovation capacity of drug trafficking organisations and their structural characteristics. Additionally, when performing Maritime Interdiction Operations firmly based on intelligence, the officers and NCOs of the Colombian Navy place particular emphasis on achieving a high degree of success. (2) The figures and numbers produced by the accumulation of events allow them to visualise their results and reinforce their role. These strategies help to shape the actions of drug traffickers who, to a large extent, are virtually unknown. The production of knowledge and understanding of the enemy brings along new uncertainties as well. Maritime Interdiction Operations firmly based on intelligence play an essential role in the Navy’s work to stop the flow of illicit drugs. As a result, the Navy made efforts to understand and anticipate the routes and trends of the maritime transport methods used by drug traffickers, mainly through the production of statistics based on seizures and intelligence. Different routines, strategies, and interests among Colombian agencies make collaboration and intelligence sharing particularly difficult, even when encouraged by the arena of command (Guerrero Castro, 2017). Furthermore, although the collection of intelligence information is never an objective and rational process (Räsänen & Nyce, 2013), it is used to outline the enemy’s shape and capacity. The collection and analysis of information is both a tool to achieve results and a source of snapshots of enemies, structures, and actions. The Navy has created a diverse network of collaborators and local informants and has developed strategies to infil- trate drug trafficking rings, which can be an excellent way to achieve results. However, informants are not necessarily ware of the objectives of the Navy and, therefore, can provide information that may lead to an unsuccessful operation from the standpoint of the Navy. Determining when information and intelligence are accurate enough to consolidate an intelligence package is a crucial moment for an officer and his staff, and it could lead to a successful operation. MIOs are based on intelligence; their objective is to control the sea by conducting operations explicitly aimed at clear targets. After years of traditional patrolling in areas that were considered traditional smuggling routes, the Navy, specifically the Coast Guard Corps, started to direct their 72 J. GUERRERO C. operations based only on intelligence information. Achieving results and successful operations are fundamental for the Coast Guard in its intention to present itself as one of the leading agencies in the WoD and stay under the spotlight of the State. MIOs firmly based on intelligence help to navigate the uncertainty of controlling ‘uncontrollable flows’ of drugs and promoting control discourses (Gootenberg, 2005, 2009). The divergent interpretations of success on each side of the binary, conditioned by their asymmetries of information, invariably modify the perception of reality that allowed the initial actions of both sides.

Open Sea Action: The Maritime Interdiction Operations MIOs are well-established practices of navies. They have been defined as ‘operations to divert, disrupt, delay, or destroy an enemy’s surface capabilities before they can be used effectively against friendly forces, or to otherwise achieve objectives’ (Smith, 2011). More generally, the term Maritime Interdiction is applied to different operations where the military or LEAs form a legitimate state board and inspect a suspicious vessel. This definition allows us to understand the role of the military in controlling the many insecurities they must deal with that fall under the classification of warfare: piracy, people smuggling, terrorism, and the illicit traffic of weapons and guns (Reitano, De Lugo, & Jesperson, 2018). To face non- traditional threats, navies need to transform their goals regarding the procurement of technology, innovation, and learning. For instance, the Sri Lanka Navy made a compelling case for the adaptation of a navy in order to face asymmetric wars, which had an essential role in defeating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, better known as the Tamil Tigers (Smith, 2011). The specificities of MIOs in Colombia include: (1) the symbolic use of the (many) borders; (2) the characteristics of the ‘enemy’ mean that these operations are, in fact, enforcement operations; and (3) the reconfigura- tion of the idea of success. MIOs are the main tool the Colombian Navy uses to diminish the export of illicit drugs and, thus, reduce the cash flows of drug smugglers.3 The Colombian Navy defines an MIO as the practice

3 The US Navy, in its Naval Operational Concepts, establishes two different concepts for Maritime Interdiction Operations: ‘Maritime Interception Operations: monitor, query, and board merchant vessels to enforce sanctions against other nations such as those embodied in 4 HOW DO YOU CATCH DRUG SMUGGLERS IN THE OPEN SEA? 73 of thwarting smugglers’ efforts to use Colombian jurisdictional waters, coastal sectors, and rivers to perform their illegal activities or maritime transport methods to carry drugs to other countries. This concept has a central role in the operational regulations of the Navy,4 and Coast Guard personnel learn MIO procedures as part of their training. An MIO requires the deployment of an advanced technological system in conjunction with sensorial capacities. An acute sense of smell, even in the open sea, can be key to pinpointing a smugglers’ vessel: ‘We couldn’t see anything; it was dark already and we couldn’t hear. But, because of the smell, we knew we were close. When we were about a kilometre away we started to smell the chemicals; we knew we were close’ (Franklin, 2009). The responsibilities of carrying out an MIO are distributed across different levels of the Navy: the Naval Operations Chief Office (JONA in Spanish), the commander of the theatre of operations, the commander of the base or bases participating in the operation, and the commander of the operation. An intelligence package may provide only part of the information needed to design and carry out an operation, providing the objective of the operation and an approximate location. A successful maritime operation produces quantifiable results, expressed in the capture of smugglers’ boats, smugglers, and cargo. Such evidences contribute to configure a set of practices of how a successful operation must be carried out, while at the same time undermining the existence of the reality that allows the very presence of those who achieve success. Innovations in these operations are the result of the interplay between the local view of commanders (arena of practice) and the macro strategies (arena of command) set by the Navy. This is where the views of individuals and the organisation merge. An MIO starts with information from a reliable source or the work of the Intelligence Unit, human intelligence, or technical intelligence. Furthermore, historical intelligence (i.e., an evaluation of the reliability of that information based on previous occurrences) also plays a role in it. A critical collection of information good enough to establish an ‘intelligence package’ contains data about the type of vessel, crew, approximate time

United Nations Security Council Resolutions and prevent the transport of restricted goods.’ Moreover, interception operations are carried out by LEAs, mainly the Coast Guard Unit (U.S. NAVY, 2010). According to the NATO, a Maritime Interdiction Operation ‘encompasses seaborne enforcement measures to intercept the movement of certain types of designated items into or out of a nation or specific area’ (NATO, 2005). 4 COMANDO ARMADA, Disposición 016/ 06 de COARC, Normas de Procedimiento Operacional. 74 J. GUERRERO C. and site of departure, and cargo. Different smuggling artefacts require different types of information. The commander must be sure of the reliability of the information in order to plan for contingencies and evaluate the intelligence package. Once the information is deemed enough to launch an MIO, the planning stage begins. Commanders need to learn to plan their actions, in order to safeguard the operation, and those of their sub- ordinates in a way that complies with judicial proceedings. Secrecy is important; there is a strict protocol regarding who should know what information to avoid smugglers being informed of Navy operations. Units are always ready to operate; the ‘infrastructure is open 24/7’. The operation is not launched until the commander is assured of high chances of success. The commander works out the time needed to operate, the characteristics of the area where the operation is going to be carried out, and any security issues. The commander then decides which boats and officers are going to carry out the operation, requests boats from other units or bases, or collaboration from other LEAs or the military, if needed, and matches information with interdiction assets. The use of additional units, such as helicopters or planes, is subject to availability. Usually, once the boats are launched, two fast interceptor boats (primary and secondary) pursue the smugglers’ vessel. The boats can be launched from a Coast Guard base or a bigger unit in the open sea. An ocean-searching radar guides the operation from the sea fleet, the base or, if possible, an airplane. Smugglers’ movements offer an idea of the direction to take. The commander and his staff then triangulate possible points of encounter and direct the boats to them. When the crew of the rapid reaction units sees the smugglers’ artefact, a series of synchronised movements are performed by the Navy’s boats in order to approach and block the movement of the smugglers’ boat. Until this point, the officers in charge of the operation are in continuous communication with their senior counterparts at the base, but once officers in the rapid boats observe their target, they take command of the chase. Such synchronised movements reduce the possibilities of success of smugglers’ evasive actions, and Navy’s boats aim to get as close as possible in order to initiate the third stage of the MIO. Sailing rapid reaction boats play a central part in training courses where Coast Guard personnel begin to learn about different aspects of said boats, such as speed and balance. When the Navy’s boats are as close as possible, the next stage of the MIO begins: visually and verbally requesting smugglers to stop the artefact. Smugglers may decide to stop or evade. Evade here is a ‘state of mind’; Navy personnel consider that smugglers will try 4 HOW DO YOU CATCH DRUG SMUGGLERS IN THE OPEN SEA? 75 to evade at any moment. Navy personnel may also wait for a designated sniper to be in range to shoot at the smugglers’ boat. Smugglers may decide to continue performing evasive manoeuvres, using speed, waves, and darkness to avoid capture. They may decide to turn back, abandon the boat and cargo, and run into the coast where catching them is difficult. Coast Guard personnel will try to get as close as possible, and now the verbal signals are replaced by warning shots. Again, smugglers may stop, retaliate, or continue. If they decide on the latter, a sniper will shoot at the smugglers’ boat engines from the centre of a Navy’s vessel where the ship’s see-saw movement is less pronounced. The sniper does not look at the smugglers, or back; he only looks down, where the engine is located. This operation requires continuous communication between the machine operator and the sniper, who shout back and forth, ‘Out (of range) out, out, there!’ The captain will thus try to keep an optimum distance so that the sniper can take a clean shot. When smugglers stop (or are forced to), Coast Guard boats approach them and proceed to board. If the drug smugglers are carrying a significant amount of illicit cargo, it will be easy to spot: there will be big bags, carefully packaged to prevent sea water from damaging the expensive cargo. An NCO, probably trained to perform the next task, takes a sample of the white powder and applies a reactive agent. If the mix turns blue, it is beyond doubt: they have achieved an ‘event’. If the cargo is not detectable in plain sight, Coast Guard personnel perform an inspection. Visual clues often provide information about where the illicit cargo may be hidden; for example, an uneven size of the gas tank, an excessive or ‘suspicious’ number of chairs, a section recently painted, or new screws. Smugglers are often smart: the cargo is not visible, there are no visual cues, and they claim to be fishermen. They may also claim they refused to stop because they were scared. At that point, the officer decides to trust his intelligence or the ‘fishermen’. The boat is towed back to the Coast Guard base to be drilled, an essential part of the operation. An NCO pierces a section of the boat and, if nothing appears, he drills another one until something comes out along with the shavings: a white powder. Local enforcement authorities are informed of the operation, the capture of the smugglers, and the seizure of the boat and cargo. A press release is written and sent to local and national media. At that moment, however, smugglers may evade the law again if their lawyers use weaknesses in the procedures carried out by the Coast Guard personnel to defend their clients successfully and reclaim the release of their boat. For 76 J. GUERRERO C. the Coast Guard personnel, the presence of lawyers means only one thing: the need for proof of the involvement of the captured artefacts or people in drug trafficking activities, despite the absence of illegal drugs or any other evidence. In a matter of hours, days, weeks, or months (from the initial intelligence about the smuggler’s actions to the capture and handling of the smuggler) a complex socio-technical system is deployed to demonstrate its suitability for the job it was assigned. Coast Guard personnel then have the duty to preserve all the evidence concerning the MIO, as they need to produce and maintain records of all counter-drug operations. The data produced is used by the attorney’s office to press charges by the intelligence office to pursue new leads and, in general, to produce standardised methods of inspection, early alarm systems, statistics, as well as an evaluation of the operations. This set of activities addresses daily needs, the creation of long-term plans, accountabilities, knowledge of smugglers’ transport methods, types of vessel (e.g., speed, camouflage, position, and/ or route), suspicious activities, risk assessment (number of people on board and suspicions of weapons or other sources of risk as well as the assessment of their own capacities, e.g., speed), and knowledge and experience of the crew. Such information is used to develop ‘historic intelligence’, observe changes in smuggling practices, create an image of the enemy, assess practices and training of the military, evaluate the performance of new boats, and depict an image of a valuable organisation in the WoD.

Finding the Right Boat: The Coast Guard Unit’s Rapid Reaction Boats The procurement of interceptor boats between 1994 and 2013, rather than a consequence of the accumulation of formalised data or ‘factual’ evidence leading to the purchase of the right boat, was the result of various processes that share a common characteristic: the knowledge and experience of local commanders and their perceptions of interdiction ‘events’ are key in them. This section deals with the arena of practices, where the technological and practical choices of the Navy regarding the WoD stem from. While the Colombian Navy has participated in counter-drug operations since the early 1980s (mainly thwarting marihuana smugglers in 4 HOW DO YOU CATCH DRUG SMUGGLERS IN THE OPEN SEA? 77 the Caribbean Sea) full-on involvement only came with the creation of the Coast Guard Unit, which implied that, since that point, operational success was measured in terms of seizures of illicit drugs and military trained personnel became involved in law enforcement operations. In 1992, the first ‘Development Plan’ for the Coast Guard was designed.5 Said plan made provisions for ten years and included the construction of primary and secondary bases all along the Caribbean Coast. The Coast Guard Unit started operations in 1994 with the establishment of the first Coast Guard base in Cartagena, on the Colombian Caribbean Coast, and the building of another base in Buenaventura, on the Pacific Coast. The Coast Guard is a branch of the Colombian Navy attached to the Chief of Naval Operations. The Coast Guard started with ten small units of boats that had been quickly reassigned from other posts in the Caribbean Fleet. Most of them were discharged or repurposed within a few years. Those boats were a mixture of maritime patrol boats and logistic vessels, and their operational age ranged from 10 to 30 years when assigned to the Coast Guard. In 1995, the Colombian Navy received ten rapid reaction Dolphin boats from the US Government to be used by the Coast Guard, to carry out counter-drug operations. Nowadays, rapid reaction or interceptor boats play a central role in the Coast Guard’s interdiction operations and are used to hunt and approach smugglers. Starting with the Dolphin, between 1994 and 2014, the Colombian Coast Guard employed a range of different patrol boats, and its interdiction vessels were obtained from several sources: donations from the US Government, procurement from the local naval industry, repurposing seized smuggler boats, development of boats between the Navy and its Shipyard, and procurement from the international market. Until 2013, the Coast Guard and its auxiliary fleet were mostly second- hand purchases and donations from the United States. In addition to interceptor boats joining the action between 1994 and 2013, the Colombian Coast Guard also: (1) modified old boats to increase their speed; (2) repurposed captured smugglers’ boats to use them during interdiction operations; (3) designed and built its own boats (Beast and Orca); and (4) received donations or procured new boats from the US Government. Most of these strategies were aimed at achieving higher speeds in order to match what was perceived as the main threat: go-fast

5 Development Plan for the Coast Guard of the National Navy. 78 J. GUERRERO C. boats and their increasing cargo capacity, camouflage, and speed. As such, the procurement of these boats was the result of localised efforts. Since 2013 onwards, the Coast Guard made attempts to formalise a procurement process, establishing needs based not only on current localised threats but also in order to maintain more a permanent control of maritime areas, as stated in its development plan of the same year (Table 4.1). Most patrol boats follow the same trajectory: first, the assigned boat is considered a suitable tool; second, the personnel express dissatisfaction with the vessel due to modifications, damages, or perceptions of the enemies’ boats; finally, the vessel is discarded or repurposed to be replaced with a ‘more suitable’ one.

Humble Beginnings: The Dolphin The Dolphin was the first proper patrol boat used by the Colombian Coast Guard Unit to chase smugglers. The US Government donated the firsts

Table 4.1 Colombian Coast Guard’s rapid interceptor boats, 1994–2014

Type Origin Condition Adquistion Year Quantity country

Dolphin USA Second-hand Donation 1994 20 and new Lobster boats/ Colombia Second-hand Repurpose, local 1995 15 Andromeda class and new industry Interceptor/go-fast Colombia Second-hand Repurpose, local 1995 17 and new industry Orca Colombia New Local industry/ 2003 15 navy shipyard Midnight express 39 USA Second-hand Donation/ 2005 15 and new procurement SAFE boats defender USA New Donation/ 2013 5 380X procurement Renegade patrol boat USA New Procurement 2013 10 38 EDUARDOÑO 380 Colombia New Local industry 2013 24 Tipo B SAFE boats apostle USA New Donation/ 2014 7 410 procurement

Source: Author’s own work based on diverse sources 4 HOW DO YOU CATCH DRUG SMUGGLERS IN THE OPEN SEA? 79

Dolphins, and later others were built in Colombia.6 A Dolphin is a 7.81-m-long 2.60-m-wide fiberglass boat with no armour that can reach a maximum speed of 40 knots propelled by two 200-hp outboard engines.7 The Dolphin was widely used during patrols, Maritime Interdiction Operations, and search and rescue operations; moreover, some of these first boats are currently displayed as monuments at Coast Guard bases. By the time the Dolphins were deployed in the early 1990s, smugglers were already using GPS, while members of the Coast Guard had to make their attempts to acquire such positioning systems, either by buying them or by using seized ones. Besides matching smugglers’ speed, the Coast Guard personnel had to face differences between the Pacific and Caribbean Seas because the lengths of the waves in said maritime areas are not the same, affecting the manoeuvrability of the Dolphin. To match the speed of smuggling artefacts and to overcome the difficulties of the lengths of the waves, the Coast Guard personnel decided to extend the vessel by 0.6–1.2 m and carry out trials to check the manoeuvrability of the boat after the changes. The Coast Guard mechanics were in charge of these modifications, cutting the boat in two and adding a custom-made fiberglass piece. The lifespan of these vessels was initially only seven to ten years; however, due to continuous tinkering with the hull and engines, it was extended to nearly the double in some cases. Coast Guard personnel were responsible for the fiberglass work and repair, as well as replacing and modifying the engines. Despite gaining speed by modifying the hull, the Dolphins were not able to keep up with the go-fast boats from the mid-1990s onwards. Then, during the mid-1990s, some smugglers were able to increase the speed of their artefacts, and the Dolphins were no longer useful to chase them.

Local Solutions and Engineering Visions: The Beast, the Orca, and Smuggling Boats In 1997, the Navy’s Chief of Operations in the Caribbean decided that the Navy should construct its own rapid interceptor boat as a response to

6 The company in charge of building the Colombian version of the Dolphin was Eduardo Londoño e Hijos Sucesores S. A. (Eduardoño S.A.), based in Medellin with offices in Bogota, Buenaventura, and Cartagena. This company mostly built small boats in polyester and GFRP (Glass-Fiber Reinforced Plastic) between 4 m and 13 m long to be used in transport, fisheries, and sports activities, until it was commissioned by the Navy to construct the Dolphin. 7 Maritime infantry and the Antinarcotics Police also used the Dolphins and equipped them with 1×12.7 mm or 2×7.62 mm automatic guns. 80 J. GUERRERO C. continuous reports about failed operations due to the difficulties of matching smugglers’ artefacts’ speed. The rear admiral assigned a group of naval engineers the drafting of a prototype, which was then reviewed by an external boat designer. The initial design proposed a boat that could reach up to 45 knots but was easy to manoeuvre; besides, it could be launched or picked up by corvettes or frigates and included the use of GPS as a novelty. The boats weighed 1500 kg, their range was 200 miles, and, most importantly, they cost half the price of off-the-shelf models (Webinfomil, 2003).8 This rapid interceptor boat was designed to be employed in the Caribbean Sea. The process of designing and building these boats, from the moment the decision was made until the boats were commissioned to carry out interdiction operations, took six months.9 The four rapid interceptor boats built were able to reach a speed of up to 60 knots per hour and to spin on their axis. Soon nicknamed the Beast by Coast Guard personnel, it was the first vessel that enabled them to sail that fast. Another approach during the late 1990s involved the use of Lobster boat hulls. According to Navy reports, smugglers were using a range of hulls that measured between 8.2 m (propelled by two outboard engines and up to 25 knots per hour) and 10.9 m (with three to four engines).10 At this stage, the Coast Guard personnel started repurposing seized smuggling boats in order to carry interdiction operations. The preferred hull to do the job of pursuing smugglers is precisely the 10.9 m long Lobster hull. The use of smuggling boats as part of the Coast Guard efforts is justified for multiple reasons. The use of smuggling boats as part of the Coast Guard efforts is justified for multiple reasons, especially a lack of resources and the perceptions of being defeated. By 2002, a new attempt to build a rapid patrol boat was commissioned to Cotecmar11 (Science and Technology Corporation for the Development of the Maritime and Fluvial Naval Industry), and a newly created Navy shipyard was founded in 1998. The shipyard began activities in 2001, and the next year it received instructions for two interrelated projects that

8 Each boat cost 40 million pesos in 1997, compared to 80 million pesos for a similar model off the shelf. 9 The design and building process took five months, with a month of trials and adjustments. 10 As noted in Chap. 3, smugglers also used a vast array of artisanal vessels, built in makeshift shipyards. 11 In Spanish, Corporación de Ciencia y Tecnología para el Desarrollo de la Industrial Naval, Marítima y Fluvial. 4 HOW DO YOU CATCH DRUG SMUGGLERS IN THE OPEN SEA? 81 involved the design and building of small high-speed boats: the Orca for the Coast Guard Unit and Patrol River Boats for the Marine Infantry Unit. The Orca was set to replace the Dolphins and Eduardoño hulls and, while it was being designed, Navy personnel and Cotecmar designers met in order to clarify the requirements of the boat, that is, conducting MIOs in coastal and jurisdictional waters in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. However, the design efforts mostly adopted a commanding engineering view in which speed was considered the primary variable in the process (Ministerio de Defensa, 2008). The final design was a 11.8-m-long 2.6-m-wide fiberglass hull with three 200-hp engines, 500 nautical miles of range, and a five-person crew that could reach speeds up to 40 knots when fully loaded, or 60 knots on a smooth sea with no cargo. The design of the Orca included improvements for sailors’ comfort, such as ergo- nomic chairs, a resting cabin, and a bathroom. Designers estimated sav- ings that amounted to 50% between the Orca and similar off-the-shelf boats. The building process of each Orca lasted approximately 150 days. Trials were conducted in April, 2003, and a month later, the boats were assigned their first missions. Trials of theOrca were carried out by Coast Guard personnel with experience in high-speed pursuits in early 2003, and they gave hints of several problems with the vessel and foreseeable issues in using such ship for interdictions. Not only members of the Coast Guard identified those flaws during the trials; when chasing smuggling go-fasts, they were also perceived by smugglers during interdictions they evaded. Smugglers established the technical capacity of their chasers and under- took evasive actions.

Domestication: The Midnight Express A new interceptor boat arrived in late 2005: the Midnight Express. This 12 m long and 2.9 m wide fiberglass vessel is fitted with four 220-hp engines that attain up to 50 knots in smooth sea conditions. It was partly acquired via the Plan Colombia as a donation from the US Government,12 and the Colombian Government funded the rest in several instalments. Four of these vessels were received in 2005, and they were set to operate in the Caribbean. Ten more were received between 2008 and 2009 to be

12 Together with a reliance type boat discarded by the US Coast Guard, where it was on service from 1968 to 2001. It was renamed Valle del Cauca and refitted to perform patrol duties in the Pacific Ocean. 82 J. GUERRERO C. assigned to different bases in the Pacific and Caribbean (Armada República de Colombia, 2005). These boats were described in the official newspaper of the Navy in an advertising tone: ‘The new generation of the interceptor, equipped with the best sensors and high speed’ (El Tiempo, 1994). However, although the speed and detection capacity of the Midnight Express were considered strategic advantages for the members of the Coast Guard, some commanders became frustrated with their performance and decided not to employ them during interdiction operations. Moreover, maintenance played a key role in the expectations about the Midnight Express; the boat was considered a good tool, but one that needed to be handled with care. For that reason, Coast Guard mechanics modified the Midnight Express boats in order to solve some of the boats’ reliability problems perceived by the Coast Guard when carrying out interdiction operations (Fig. 4.2). The Navy’s strategic plans and documents often refer to the procurement and repurposing of boats to be deployed during MIOs as responses to operational requirements. The history of interceptor boats demonstrates that the localised view of Coast Guard personnel plays an important role in decisions to use new boats and, especially, in the modification of vessels to respond to local threats. The evolution of patrol boats is on display at Coast Guard bases: a Dolphin boat welcomes visitors at the entrance; on the near dock, possibly a couple of (purchased or repurposed) Eduardoños share the space with a Midnight Express and, recently, with the new defenders or Apostol boats; and in the workshop nearby, a Midnight is being refitted, anOrca is used to train recruits, and other Orcas are stored in the warehouse along with some discarded hulls. Discarded boats, which not too long ago were considered useful tools, sit alongside vessels that are

Fig. 4.2 The patrol boats, from the Dolphin (1995) to the Midnight express (2006). (Source: Author) 4 HOW DO YOU CATCH DRUG SMUGGLERS IN THE OPEN SEA? 83 being modified or refitted for the new generation of boats. The history of interceptor patrol boats also challenges popular versions of the binary interdiction/evasion as equated with inflexibility/flexibility to explain smugglers’ competitive advantage. For instance, several Coast Guard projects to match smugglers’ capacity were completed in less than six months, and refurbishing engines to improve their speed or replacing them took even less. The timeline of the procurement of boats is a mixture of attempts to develop a local military industry (that could benefit from the local expertise of the Colombian Navy) and local pressures to achieve results. Matching the perceived capacity of smuggling artefacts was the main driving force behind the procurement efforts made from 1995 until the afore- mentioned Coast Guard Development Plan of 2013. In said plan, an experienced Coast Guard commander was able to coordinate a procurement process that addressed different needs of the Coast Guard beyond high-speed transport in the open sea. Between 1995 and 2013, go-fast boats and the increasing use of speed in order to evade control motivated the Navy to explore alternatives to catch up with smugglers, including plans to design and build their own ships and use captured smuggling vessels.

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Conclusions

Abstract In the concluding chapter, the author brings together common threads that had emerged throughout the book. The chapter reflects on the need to overcome the oversimplified accounts of the nature of the practices of both sides of the binary interdiction/evasion: smugglers, on the one hand, characterised by flexible, innovative, and highly adaptive organisations; inflexible law enforcement agencies (LEAs), on the other, slow to make decisions, change, and adapt. Reconsidering the production of drug smugglers’ technologies as a result of dispersed peer innovation, and Navy responses as shaped by the interplay of the arena of commando and the arena of practice as a co-evolutionary process, leads to a better understanding of such antagonist relationships.

Keywords War on Drugs • Interdiction • Flexibility • Co-evolution

As presented in the academic literature and media, drug smugglers are somehow one step ahead of law enforcement. This book is mostly shaped, however, by a desire to correct the oversimplified accounts of the nature of the practices of both sides of the binary interdiction/evasion: smugglers, on the one hand, characterised by flexible, innovative, and highly adaptive organisations; inflexible law enforcement agencies (LEAs), on the other, slow to make decisions, change, and adapt. Moreover, evidence from seized smugglers’ artefacts has been used to demonstrate smugglers’

© The Author(s) 2020 87 J. Guerrero C., Narcosubmarines, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9023-4_5 88 J. GUERRERO C. innovative capacities versus the slowness of LEAs. Nevertheless, if the phenomenon is examined from a different perspective, it can be argued that a closer look at the practices of both sides of the binary provides a more balanced image of its dynamics. Rather than a continuous process of improvement or evolution, the development of smugglers’ artefacts can be better understood as the outcome of dispersed peer innovation. On the other side of the binary, Navy practices—rather than bound by the inflexibility of a hierarchical bureaucratic organisation—can be considered the result of the interplay of localised views within and between organisations, the experiences of officials and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs), and rewards and institutional goals. In other words, military practices in the War on Drugs (WoD) are shaped by the interplay between the arenas of command and the arenas of practice, each having their own political, social, and technical visions. Flexibility is commonly highlighted to explain the advantages of smugglers, but during the late 1990s and early 2000s, Coast Guard personnel were also able to match traffickers’ capacity by making use of seized artefacts and quickly producing their own go-fast boats. Furthermore, mechanics at the bases constantly tinker with boats to adapt them in order to face what are perceived as local needs to counter threats. Therefore, while it can be argued that LEA personnel are subject to a centrally designated modus operandi (i.e., interdiction as the sanctioned form of controlling smugglers), in the field, officers and NCOs can quickly adapt and transform their practices and artefacts to meet operational demands. As a result of such interpretation emerges what can be called the ‘fallacy of flexibility’, a critique of the understanding that the competitive advantages of drug smugglers are solely a consequence of their organisational arrangements and their innovative capacities. The fallacy is the result of asymmetrical views on the capabilities of drug smugglers versus state agents. However, several possibilities stem from this criticism against the manner the military and LEAs conceive their practices. Understanding that the competitive advantages of smugglers are only temporary, and the result of uncoordinated patterns, may lead to escape the fallacy of flexibility. In the sea, the operational part of this binary interdiction/evasion involves, on the smugglers’ side, a wide array of artefacts including some fairly old technologies (fishing boats, trawlers,bricolage artefacts, narcosubs, and go-fast boats), which can have global effects due to their cargo. To catch drug smugglers, the Coast Guard has increasingly relied on a 5 CONCLUSIONS 89 combination of detection systems (radars) and human and technical intelligence, but their job is not complete until smugglers’ artefacts are stopped and their cargo is seized. The Coast Guard Unit, specifically, employs a combination of different practices and boats. Far from the sophistication of contemporary military technology, the WoD in the maritime environment is a war fought with mundane and prosaic artefacts. Smugglers’ artefacts are the result of a combination of different forms of knowledge, mostly gained locally during daily activities, such as experience in glass fibre handling, maritime engines, woodwork, and the like. Those involved in the production of said artefacts usually move between what is illegal and what is legitimate (Abraham & van Schendel, 2005) in the ‘ungoverned spaces’ they inhabit. In remote areas where accessing workshops is challenging and off-the-shelf vessels and spare parts are not readily available and prohibitively expensive, local fishers routinely tinker with engines and build their own vessels. Crews are also recruited among locals and experienced seamen. Taking advantage of existing social ties, it is not uncommon that the members of the crew are kin. The ever-present antagonistic relationship between smugglers and LEAs can be reduced to the contrast between what the State considers to be the appropriate activities in the territory and the tactics of unruly users as they take advantage of perceived opportunities. Notwithstanding There is a need to explain the dynamics of such antagonistic relationships, and the process of technological innovation in the WoD offers such an opportunity. The concept of co-evolution is useful to explain the way dynamic socio-technical systems influence each other. It has also proven useful to explain change when the elements in a system are intimately connected and the mutual relationship between heterogeneous elements and the wider society. Mutual shaping or co-evolution occurs when developers seek to create a community of users, that is, align goals. One of the main goals of this book has been to present an overview of the evolution of smugglers’ and LEAs’ technologies. However, the identification of such evolution (i.e., smugglers’ innovations to produce new artefacts and LEAs’ creative response to the challenges posed by traffickers) does not explain the way this has happened. Narcosubs are built by different smuggling groups (in a variety of locations, using diverse materials, designs, and building techniques) that have identified the possibility of exploiting local expertise to construct such maritime artefacts. As a result, various groups have been able to create their own working versions of the narcosub. By exploiting go-fast boats, other smuggling groups continue to rely on a 90 J. GUERRERO C. steady supply of traditional knowledge about maritime routes and readily available artefacts, which also involves adapting the ships to avoid detection. The concept of co-evolution can broadly cover these various strategies and the strategies of LEAs, but a more complex analytical framework can be offered. The literature on drug smuggling has adopted methods that, paradoxically, only provide asymmetric access to the interaction between traffickers and LEAs, restoring in positive data and creating models based on seizures. Only a handful of studies have concentrated on analysing the ways both enforcement agencies and traffickers perform their actions and learn. An even lower number describe or deal with smugglers’ technologies and practices and, although the militarisation of the WoD is a frequent topic, there are no studies on the practices and technologies deployed by the military to face drug traffickers. Studies of drug smugglers have, since the mid-1990s, stressed the unorganised character of illicit business as a way to avoid the problems of previous descriptions of illegal enterprises that mostly focused on mafia and cartel types in which bureaucracy models of organised crime, as defined by Kleemans (2014), were used to explain the success of those enterprises. Since the mid-1990s, it has become fashion- able to use the concept of networks to explain the fluidity of traffickers. As a result, drug studies concentrated their efforts on characterising the structure of said networks and pointing out their competitive advantages. Such investigations juxtapose the flexibility and adaptability of drug trafficking with a traditional view of LEAs in which such traits are hampered by their bureaucratic commitments and long command chains. This book demonstrates that studying the practices of LEA personnel in the field provides a different assessment than previous academic literature, and it allows us to understand that flexibility is not an emerging property that results from a particular form of organisation. The concept of dispersed peer innovation provides a handy tool to clarify the production of technologies in the WoD. This idea was explored as an alternative explanation of the process of the evolution of a complex artefact. In this model, as explored by Hyysalo and Usenyuk (2015) in their study of the Karakat, users retain control over the invention, modification, diversification, building, and maintenance of an artefact. The literature on narcosubs demonstrates that different transportation groups adopted the narcosub meme and combined different off-the-shelf components and forms of knowledge (formal and local) in order to build these paradoxically complex but mundane artefacts. The resulting artefact 5 CONCLUSIONS 91 needed to have two main characteristics, safe transport of the illicit cargo and evasion of state control, because drug smugglers as well as traffickers of other forms of illicit goods restore to evasion, not confrontation (Humphreys & Smith, 2018). Dispersed peer innovation accounts for the high diversity of artefacts in outlaw contexts. Smugglers’ artefacts are also bricolages because outlaw users adopt a mix-and-match approach in order to produce highly cost-efficient products (including highly complex technological configurations like narcosubs) suited to their needs; this strategy exploits the locally available traditional knowledge/capacity and helps them to avoid potentially expensive and detectable procurement from commercial suppliers. The main characteristic of outlaw innovation is its open character, that is, a highly dispersed effort of often markedly temporary forms of organisations and the self-reliance of builders and designers regarding the acquisition of knowledge and materials. Explanations that aim describing the process of innovation in outlaw contexts (in which antagonistic relationships shape the actions of actors) must further take into account the paradoxical and symbiotic relationship between smugglers and LEAs. Diverging interpretations of success on each side of the binary, conditioned by asymmetries of information between them, continuously unravel the perception of reality that allowed both sides’ initial actions. In such circumstances, it is increasingly difficult for actors to differentiate between what it is created, what is destroyed, what remains, and how to perform their actions. Several metaphors have been used to explain the dynamics between traffickers and law enforcement agencies. Practitioners and media refer to a cat-and-mouse game, while the balloon effect has been used to explain the mobility of the drug market, farming sites, routes, and transport methods as the result of enforcement efforts; other authors have argued that the balloon effect explanation implies a pessimistic account of law enforcement efforts and unlikely to be proven given the kind of data used in the first place (Reuter, 2014; Windle & Farrell, 2012). The idea of an arms race is often invoked as well. Moreover, the Red Queen metaphor is help- ful to explain the dynamics of interdiction/evasion. Contrary to previous metaphors that place agency only on one side of the binary, the Red Queen metaphor stresses the symbiotic relationship between the two sides and, at the same time, acknowledges that both ends of the binary are continually upgrading their strategies, not only as a response to the other side’s actions but as a way to stay in the game. Studies into innovation in the military have long acknowledged that traditional business models do not apply to 92 J. GUERRERO C. the analysis of military technology. The implementation of said technology is often studied examining several factors: the technical characteristics of the technology, technological innovation as a result of doctrinal change, and intra and inter-rivalry service. Examining practices, as suggested by the Biography of Artefacts and Practices (BOAP), is particularly useful when studying antagonistic environments that have relatively mundane and prosaic artefacts at their core, and helps to avoid focusing on narrow technical aspects. In the WoD, local actions and outcomes should be considered part of a context that provides resources and offers incentives and penalties to local players to innovate. I have not, in this book, discussed the role of the high monetary rewards as a motivation for innovating; I have devoted my efforts to unpack the sort of practices that produces such innovations. Although narcosubs, by the time this book is being finished, continue to set sail, they are not the only strategy used by drug smugglers, but one among multitude of strategies and techniques utilised to transport illicit drugs. Here are just a few examples: in 2014, a man shaved his head, glued small squares made of heroin, and covered them with a wig. He was captured when trying to fly to the United States. The market price of the cargo carried in his head amounted up to USD 60,000. The same year, in the airport of Cali, the Antinarcotics Police posted in the airport noticed a strange walking man and solicited an inspection. The man carried up to USD 70,000 street price of cocaine under girdle pants taped to his legs—almost 2 kilos of cocaine. To control such attempts, the Colombian Antinarcotics Police has acquired body scans, luggage scans, ion-scans, mobile x-ray scans, and density meters. According to the different antidrug agencies, the use of cargo containers to transport illicit drugs has recently increased, especially with destination of European market (European Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, 2016). While in 2010 the Colombian Police was able to detect eleven containers carrying drugs, the number increased to forty-one in 2017 (Centro Internacional de Estudios Estratégicos Contra el Narcotráfico,2017 ). The rip-on/rip-off method through the use of containers for the shipment of drugs, consisting simply of introducing cocaine into the container in the port of shipment (with knowledge or not of the crew) is the most prevalent. The detection in 2013 of a novel system to surpass the controls of the port of Antwerp, through the use of hackers that managed to access the container’s control systems of that port and ensure that containers loaded with cocaine were not inspected 5 CONCLUSIONS 93 led to suggest a merge between different forms of criminality (Comolli, 2018) creating alerts about similar occurrences in other ports (Security Affairs, 2018). In such interpretations groups of hackers would be at the service of the drug trafficking ‘cartels’ and with such alliance they would remotely control ports, which would be, then, at the mercy of criminality. However, access to the IT systems of the port of Antwerp was only possible due to the physical presence of the hackers in the port and the instal- lation of devices to capture access codes (European Cybercrime Centre, 2013). Often, the use of container includes the modification of the structure of the container, creating false floors or roofs to hide the illicit drugs, attempts to disguise the illicit drugs inside the cargo, or hiding the illicit drugs inside the cargo. Bananas, pineapples, and lemons have been used as drug containers. Chemical transformation of cocaine has allowed smugglers to disguise the illicit drugs as fruit pulps, oils, and a variety of different liquids. The Colombian Police has utilised measuring distance sensors, portable trace detectors, videoscopes, container scanners, and information systems to sort suspicious cargo from non-suspicious one as strategies to detect the illicit drugs. But as this book demonstrates, those methods are neither simply new nor old. They can be discovered and forgotten and, as it is often cyclical, once it appears again it is recognised as ahistorical and therefore new. Disagreements about the character of the artefact can produce a new ‘transport method’. The definition of what is a novel method of transport is also a decision made in the context of budget allocations, intra- and inter-conflicts, and personal prestige. From here, there are at least two strands of further inquiry. How smugglers decide the final design of the artefacts used for the transportation of drugs and what counts as innovation in illicit contexts. Although this book provides a conceptualisation of the process of innovation in outlaw contexts, specifically concerning the design, building, and use of narcosubmarines, more ethnographic works are needed regarding how the final shapes of the artefacts used to smuggle illicit drugs are decided and by whom. Such interpretations may challenge the way power relationships inside ‘organised crime’ are currently understood. There are an increasing and interesting literature regarding uncertainty in military organisations (Posen, 2016), there is little regarding uncertainty in the WoD. Investigating how the law enforcement and military navigate the uncertainties and produce technologies in the face of an ever prevalent ambiguity would help to continue opening the black box of the technologies in the WoD. 94 J. GUERRERO C.

What is perceived as the innovative character of drug traffickers is not only a consequence of their ingenuity and smugglers’ technologies are not the outcomes of organised innovation programmes (whether incremental or radical innovation). Instead, they are the result of non-coordinated actions by many different groups pursuing a similar goal applying different tactics, as well as the definitions imposed to those technologies by state agencies. On the other hand, military personnel in the field can innovate and modify their practices and artefacts as a result of what they perceive to be local threats. The encounter of the kind of practices going on in each side produces the complex dynamic of innovation in the War on Drugs.

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A Co-evolutionary, see Co-evolution Arenas of command, 22 Colombian Navy, xi, 22, 37, 41, 43, Arenas of practice, 22 47, 63, 64, 69, 71, 72, 76, 77, Arms race, 14, 20 83 Containers, 35–38, 41

B Balloon effect, 20, 40 D Binary interdiction/evasion, 11, 13, Dispersed peer innovation, 25, 42, 45, 22, 25, 35, 40, 41, 62, 67–70, 83 52 Biography of Artefacts and Practices Drug Enforcement Administration (BOAP), 22 (DEA), xvii, 43, 47, 69 Drug mules, 34 Drug smugglers, 11, 15, 22, 34–38, C 41, 43–45, 49, 54, 61–83 Cartels, 13, 15, 35, 36, 38, 54 Coast Guard, see Coast Guard Unit Coast Guard Unit, 41, 63, 64, 73n3, E 76–83 El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), Cocaine, 14, 34, 36–39, 38n2, 41, 43, 68 46, 47, 50, 61, 62, 65 Co-evolution, 20 Co-evolutionary dynamics, F see Co-evolution Fishing boats, 37, 48

1 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

I P Illicit flows, 35, 64, 66 Patrol boats, 77, 78, 80, 82 Intelligence, 33, 38n3, 41, 63, 65, 67–71, 73, 75, 76 Intelligence gathering, see Intelligence R Red Queen Effect (RQE), see Red Queen Hypothesis J Red Queen Hypothesis (RQH), Joint Interagency Task Force-South 20–22 (JIATFS), 69

S L Science and Technology Studies (STS), Law enforcement agencies (LEAs), xv, 16–18, 40 xvii, 11–15, 19–21, 37, 38, 40, Science, Technology and Innovation 42, 51, 67, 68, 72, 73n3, 74 Studies, 12, 16–19 Social Shaping of Technology (SST), 18, 22 M SST, see Social Shaping of Technology Maritime Interdiction Operation Sticky knowledge, 24 (MIO), xvii, 72–74, 76

U N Users, 17–19, 23, 25, 40–42, 45, 50, Narcosubmarines, 33–55 53 Narcosubs, 37

W O War on Drugs (WoD), xvii, 15, Organised crime, 11–16, 24, 25, 54 16, 21, 22, 24, 25, 40, 41, Outlaw innovation, xv, 19, 40, 55 63, 63n1, 64, 66, 68, 69, 72, Outlaw users, 16–19 76