Drug smugglers hijack sea-going yachts

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34151, 12 May 1976, Page 25

Drug smugglers hijack sea-going yachts

(By

VERN DARVILLE,

throuyh E.P.A.)

NASSAU (Bahamas). I The Bahamas have become a major pipeline for marijuana heading into North America. This archipelago. with its; thousands of islets, is’ caught up in a continuous line of cannabis shipments to a northern market believed to be as many as 90 million people. In the last 12 months the authorities have confiscated almost 90 tons of cannabis (destined for the North Ameri. (can market — averaging out to one ton per million users in the United States and Canada. Drug smuggling in the Bahamas has taken on a new character. Officials of the United States Drug Enforcement Agency say that the trade has largely been taken over from organised crime, by amateurs.

The Bahamas are a major! centre for yachts, many of I them high powered and; therefore subject to a relatively new phenomenon in. drug smuggling — hijacking ion the oceans. A recent issue of “Boating; Magazine” noted that in the last three of four years, a. rash of suspected yacht hi-( jacking has been reported ini connection with the drug traf-( fic, particularly in the Carib-I bear, and the Pacific. Expensive yachts, often; with owners and crew on board, are thought to have been seized at gunpoint by pirate-smugglers who kill or cast adrift the owners and crews, presumably to make a few smuggling runs with the yacht and then sink it. Many Bahamians recall the case of the Saba Banks. It disappeared early in 1974 after coming to the Bahamas for trials with three crewmen on board. A spokesman for the Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association (8.A.5.R.A.) privately conceded his fears that the vessel had been hijacked by drug smugglers. It was sighted just once at a Jamaican port before disappearing.

American authorities have reported that 611 pleasure boats disappeared between 1971 and 1974 and that 560 of these are still unaccounted for. Many of the missing vessels are believed to have been (victims of modern day piracy. One 28ft vessel with a Florida registration disappeared early in November, just after the three crew members told local friends that they had to be back in Miami. Both B.A.S.R.A. and the United States Coast Guard launched a wide-ranging sea and air search without success, then, in December, the captain of the wind-jammer, Phantome, reported sighting a nidnight rendezvous between .1 28ft boat, without lights, md a freighter, just off the Bahamas island of Little San Salvador.

A half-moon lit the waters as the Phantome’s skipper watched men transferring sacks from the freighter into the boat. A B.A.S.R.A. spokesman says he believes it was the missing craft. The danger of drugsmuggling operations became evident to the captain of the Phantome when he approached Little Sturrup Cay on January 27 and saw a man guarding 20 large sacks with a high-powered rifle on a deserted beach.

He quickly turned tail and left the scene and reported the incident to 8.A.5.R.A.. who, in turn, notified the local police.

Another vessel, believed to I have been hijacked in local waters, is a sloop with two persons on board — James Russell and William White, both in their mid-twenties. They were due to arrive at Georgetown. Exuma, on October 2, where a relative had sent them money through [the 'local post office. The [letter still sits in the Georgetown Post Office waiting to [be collected. ; Large ocean-going vessels can easily take a short diversion from their normal routes Ito drop off anv quantity of cargo at Little San Salvador, (which is uninhabited and situated just between San [Salvador and Cat Island. ( The main danger of illicit (operations is that innocent (owners of yachts in the right (place at the wrong time bejcame involved and sometimes (fatally so. ( “Boating . Magazine” says | that “One’s chances of being I hit by a bus or mugged in (Detroit are no doubt some(what greater statistically, (than one’s chances of being ripped-off by a bunch of I pirate-smugglers . . . Still, hijacking is something to (think about.” ! According to the magazine [the best defence is probably lan unwholesome suspicion of (one’s fellow man. Do not pick jup doubtful crew members j. . . Do not leave the companionway open when you’re moored on a public dock . . . Do file your version of a float plan . . . And if you’re competent with firearms, carry a gun on board and keep it loaded, safely stowed, (and readily available. [ Since warnings have been (issued to boat-owners about the risk of hijackings at sea. the numbers of boats disappearing has dropped considerably.