Seaborne drugs

On May 29, 2019 Manila Bulletin reported that 40 bricks of cocaine weighing 1 kilogram each were found by fishermen in an abandoned motorized banca floating off the coast of Gubat town, Sorsogon Province. Street value: 1218 million pesos.

The Philippine STAR reported in April 2019 that bundles of cocaine bricks floating off Surigao del Sur and other such bundles floating off Batanes were recovered by fishermen.

All in all about 200 kg of seaborne cocaine have been found in the provinces of Quezon, Camarines Norte, Catanduanes, Aurora, Davao Oriental, Surigao del Sur as well as Dinagat and Siargao Islands of Surigao del Norte. That is from extreme south to extreme north of the archipelago’s eastern seaboard.

Newly, on December 18, 2020 STAR reported: Cocaine ‘Ghost boat’ washes up on Pacific Island. The 18 foot fiberglass vessel was found at Ailuk Atoll in the Marshall Islands with 649 kg of cocaine, ‘after drifting on the high seas, potentially for a year or two from Central or South America’.

After the death of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in 1993, numerous smaller rival cartels took over the coca planting. The new narco-militias’ output of coca paste combined is much higher than ever. They supply the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel of the imprisoned Joaquin “El Chapo” de Guzman with its worldwide trade network.

My theory is that some producers want to bypass the Mexican monopoly. The notorious Gulf Clan dominates a vast terrain that has access to the Malaga Bay and Bahia de Buenaventura on the Pacific Coast. So it suggests itself to deliver the drugs directly to Los Angeles and San Francisco, where demand by drug consumers is high.

An engine trouble might have occurred off the Central American Coast anywhere at northern latitude 9 to 13 degrees. That is where the Pacific North Equatorial Current runs in western direction parallel to the Equator first to the Marshall Islands with a speed of less than 0.5. knots and then up to the Philippines with a speed of 0.5 to 0.8 knots (1 knot is 1 nautical mile per hour or 1,852 kilometer per hour. It is a slow walking speed). The unfortunate banca crew may have been ‘sucked’ into that current and suffering from thirst they might have succumbed to despair and jumped into the ocean.

After 13,000 kilometers the unmanned banca or any object like floating bricks reaches the Marshall Islands. The travel takes 60 days. East of the Philippines the North Equatorial Current bifurcates into the northern Kuro-Schio Stream skirting Luzon and a southern stream skirting Mindanao. For the additional 4,300 kilometers from the Marshall Islands to the Philippines it takes 20 more days. Consequently we must not marvel much on the origin of seaborne cocaine.

The Philippine National Police called on fishermen not to keep cocaine bricks they fish out of the sea. A certain Ronie N. was arrested after he turned over 34 bricks to the police, but kept 4 for himself. He sold the stuff in small quantities in Tandag City Surigao del Sur.

Erich Wannemacher

Lapu-Lapu City