CRIME Drone “narco sub” — equipped with Starlink antenna — seized for the first time in the Caribbean
Updated on: July 3, 2025 / 6:29 AM EDT / CBS/AFP
The Colombian navy on Wednesday announced its first seizure of an unmanned “narco sub” equipped with a Starlink antenna off its Caribbean coast.
The semisubmersible vessel was not carrying drugs, but the Colombian navy and Western security sources based in the region told AFP they believed it was a trial run by a cocaine trafficking cartel.
“It was being tested and was empty,” a naval spokeswoman confirmed to AFP.
Manned semi-submersibles built in clandestine jungle shipyards have been used for decades to ferry cocaine north from Colombia, the world’s biggest cocaine producer, to Central America or Mexico.
Why the fuck would you use starlink for this. Building a narco sub sounds like a labor intensive amount of hard work that requires smart people behind it already, why not do it better? Microchips that handle data transmission for singular amounts of dollars exist. Even someone with a not employable level of computer engineering skills, or even an unemployed engineer that cant pass a drug test (which there are lots of) could build a completely non-regulatory compliant data transceiver with a completely illegal amount of amplification and/or a completely illegal token transmission rate because fuck 56k. It wouldn’t be satellite capable but the right radio frequency on a “fuck the fcc and all their rules on what we can’t build” type device could still go hundreds if not thousands of km.
It’s almost as if Starlink is allowing this. The only way Starlink is viable for this is if its easier and better than any alternative.
Starlink is a gaint ass constellation, that spies on us all anyways. Phone calls, Internet, Etc. They let countries at war use to to remotely control drones and more. Most companies just pay fines. They do not care.
I mean, did Starlink allow it? They got caught.