Drug-running submarine found off Guatemalan coast

GUATEMALA CITY, Aug 23 (Reuters) A homemade submarine packed with bales of cocaine worth at least 350 million dollars was discovered off the coast of Guatemala, the US Coast Guard said today.

''It was a semi-submersible vessel that floated just underneath the surface of the water,'' said Kevin Ness, a spokesman for the US Coast Guard in Alameda, California.

The craft was about 50 feet long and ''painted blue to hide it under water,'' he told Reuters.

Ness said the drug traffickers sank the vessel before US Coast Guard officials could get there. Officials detained four men found floating in the water along with 11 bales of cocaine weighing around 1,210 pounds.

''The rest is now at the bottom of the sea,'' said Ness.

The US Coast Guard, which spotted the vessel on Monday in the Pacific Ocean about 300 miles southwest of the Guatemala-Mexico border, estimated the value of the recovered cocaine at more than 350 million dollars.

About 75 per cent of cocaine processed in Colombia passes through Central America on its way to the United States and smugglers keep coming up with sophisticated tricks to try to avoid getting caught.

REUTERS AK BST0051