The Russian sub in question was a Foxtrot-class, which had been in service since the 1950s. At 300 feet long, the sub had space to spare for all the drugs the Cali Cartel could want… as well as ten torpedo tubes, in case things got dicey under the sea.
The former Soviet Union gained a reputation for offloading military hardware to the highest bidder.
In 2019, footage of a U.S. Coast Guard interdiction of a homemade drug smuggling submarine took the world by storm, and for good reason. As we watched one of the baddest dudes we’re ever apt to see anywhere outside of a movie pounding on the hatch of the mostly submerged sub, many of us were shocked to learn that drug cartels
actually have their own submarines.
What may surprise you more is that these amateur submarines were really a consolation prize for drug smugglers out of Colombia. Their first choice? An actual Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine. What’s even crazier, however, is that the Russians seemed to be more than happy to sell them one.