Smugglers, Pirates and Fishermen All Tend To Be the Same Guys—Fishermen

Lobster Boats Stalk a Catamaran in Recent Caribbean Incident

Peter Swanson Oct 20

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In the Caribbean, they’re all fishermen. Drugs smugglers in go-fast craft—fishermen. Pirates stalking you on a night passage—fishermen. And, in between all the shennanigans, some of these fishermen might actually go fishing.

So when Colombia says we killed a fishermen, and the U.S. says, no, we killed a smuggler, both sides may be telling the truth.

The Caribbean Safety & Security Network (CSSN) recently reported an encounter with fishing boats that is illustrative:

A yacht transiting from Guanaja, Bay Islands, Honduras to Grand Cayman altered course due to easterly winds and a developing tropical weather system, redirecting to Isla de Providencia, Colombia. The revised route traversed the Thunder Knoll area.

At position 16°00’34.4”N 81°02’31.3”W, approximately 145 nm northeast of the Honduras/Nicaragua border, at 1300 hours, the southbound yacht encountered three traditional lobster fishing boats. The yacht passed the first vessel without incident. As it approached the second boat, the lobster boat altered course, turning eastward on an intercept course. The third boat, (also west of the yacht), was moving southward in parallel.

Concerned about these maneuvers, the yacht executed a 180-degree turn northward and increased separation to approximately one nautical mile. The second vessel subsequently repositioned itself southeast of the yacht’s location.

Faced with deteriorating sea conditions (two-plus-meter waves) from the east, the yacht turned southward planning to pass between the first and second lobster boats, which were separated by over one nautical mile. As the yacht came closer to the second vessel, it again altered course toward the yacht. Simultaneously, the third boat turned and maneuvered northward, attempting to block passage between the first and second boats.

The yacht immediately turned hard to port (SE) and proceeded at maximum speed on a beam reach in 18-20 knot winds. While the first vessel did not pursue, vessels two and three followed for approximately three to four hours before discontinuing pursuit.

The yacht had been scanning VHF continuously and no transmissions between the three boats were heard, and none of the lobster boats attempted contact with the yacht. There were no injuries and the catamaran continued its passage without further incident. A report was made to the Colombian Coast Guard on arrival in Isla de Providencia.

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When I was seminar manager for TrawlerFest, we had a class on firearms regulations along the American Great Loop and in the various Caribbean nations. Taught by a pair of lawyers, the class was agnostic about whether carrying guns was a good idea; it’s goal was only to summarize differences in laws and other factors worth considering.

The lawyers projected two different images in succession on the screen. One showed a pirate gang on a boat, the other showed a group of Caribbean fishermen on a boat. The audience was asked which they would unload their ARs upon, and, of course, no one could tell the difference. Pirates are as pirates do, not as pirates look.

The picture at the top of this story was taken when I was delivering a trawler from Isla Mujeres to the Panama Canal. The most direct route took us through shallow waters at the eastern tip of Honduras, where we anchored next to a cay to get a night’s sleep.

When I saw them approaching in the morning, we started the engines and raised anchor. They were scruffy looking and paddling with planks, but there were four of them and only two of us, and we didn’t have a gun. They hollered that they had marijuana for sale. I laid on the throttles and headed for deep water at full speed—8 knots—slow but more than enough to outrun that skiff.

My fear was that these four fishermen might have decided that this remote area was a perfect place to try out a new robbery gig.

To state the obvious, poverty is the reason fishermen are so easily recruited by criminal organizations. Even we in America are not immune. During the heyday of the “cocaine cowboys,” saying you were a commercial fisherman in South Florida was like wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with, “I smuggle coke in my boat.”

So, they know how to handle a boat. They’re not afraid to go to sea. And they need more money. They are fishermen.

No fan of the Trump Administration, Colombian President Gustavo Petro declared that the United States had murdered a humble fisherman recently when it blew up a boat from under Alejandro Andrés Carranza Medina and his fellow mariners. Trump’s people responded that Carranza was smuggling drugs on behalf of a terrorist organization that threatened national security.

One should always check local news in Latin America for a better understanding of this kind of issue. The Informador of Santa Marta, Colombia, reported that Carranza was a more enterprising young man than Petro had given him credit for.

(Carranza’s) name is linked to a high-profile case that occurred in 2016 in Santa Marta, when he was captured along with five National Police officers for the disappearance and theft of 264 firearms that were allegedly sold to the criminal organization “Los Pachenca”…While the prosecuted officers pleaded not guilty, Carranza was identified as a key player in the arms trafficking plot that strengthened the criminal power of the aforementioned gang in the Caribbean region.

While it is difficult to be certain, it appears the boat in which Carranza was riding had twin outboards and was a dark color. Most panga-type open boats in the Caribbean are white or brightly colored and sport a single Yamaha for power. Fishermen may use their own boats to commit robberies at sea, but when carrying drugs, they are apt to use someone else’s go-fast (or a submersible “narco-sub.”)

So, circumstances suggest that Carranza’s income mosaic did indeed include a smuggling component.

Meanwhile, today’s Washington Post contained a well-sourced story noting that the boats we’ve been blowing up were almost certainly part of operations delivering drugs to Europe and West Africa, not North America.

There you have it. Perfectly clear, right?

The Argument Against Sep 5 Read full story

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