This story starts with a US Coast Guard surveillance aircraft tracking a semi-submersible tearing through the Pacific Ocean carrying thousands of pounds of cocaine.

If that sounds like the opening scene of an action film, you wouldn’t be far off, because what happens next is undeniably epic.

First, some background. The semi-submersible is one of the infamously elusive boats dubbed “narco-submarines”. They’re drug cartel-funded ships built in the jungle and designed to carry massive amounts of drugs.

Most of the time they manage to fly under the radar – or they did, until June 18, reports The Washington Post.

But on June 18, there was a positive hit on a narco-submarine hundreds of miles off the Colombian and Ecuadoran coast in waters patrolled by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Munro. The ship deployed a boarding team on two small boats with a helicopter watching overhead.

They were not letting it get away, which resulted in one of the most thrilling videos of law enforcement in action to grace the internet this year:

Get that man a Bell’s.

The video is a bit chaotic, so here’s a breakdown of what you just saw:

Guardsmen, trained in boarding ships, wore helmet cameras recording the moment they ran down the vessel. “Stop your boat! Now!” one roars in Spanish as waves crash against the hull. “That’s going to be hard to get on,” he says. The boarders wore holstered pistols and night-vision goggles to prepare to peer inside the dark hull.

Once inside the hull, they found 17 000 pounds of cocaine (around 7,7 tonnes) worth an estimated $232 million.

Boarders have one to two minutes to assess if they are on a drug-laced vessel about to sink, Brickey said.

This particular semi-submersible — a ship partially submerged that cannot fully dive like a submarine — was sunk by the Coast Guard, Brickey said. The alleged smugglers were taken for prosecution by the DEA.

The haul from the June seizure was set to be offloaded Thursday during an event with Vice President Pence in attendance, part of 14 separate seizures of drugs worth a combined $569 million, the Coast Guard said. The seizures occurred off the coasts of Mexico, Central and South America.

It doesn’t seem fair to punish them by making them hang out with Pence.

Good job, guys. Looking forward to the movie version.

[source:washingtonpost]