Captain Nemo

Police nickname for a Colombian shrimp fisherman accused of designing and building 20 mini-submarines (“narco-subs”) used to smuggle cocaine into Central America and Mexico.

“He had a marvelous criminal vision,” Colombian navy Capt. Luis German Borrero told The Los Angeles Times, “He introduced innovations such as a bow that produced very little wake, a conning tower that rises only a foot above the water and a valve system that enables the crew to scuttle the sub in 10 minutes. He is very ingenious.”

The U.S. Department of Defense warns:

Self-Propelled Semi-Submersibles (S.P.S.S.) represent the emerging sophistication and innovation of drug traffickers to adapt to U.S. and regional counterdrug capabilities. The vessels are designed and built by narco-terrorists in Colombia to smuggle large volumes of cocaine over long distances in a manner that is difficult to detect. … U.S. counterdrug officials estimate that S.P.S.S. are responsible for 32 percent of all cocaine movement in the transit zone.

(Captain Nemo was the the master of the submarine Nautilus in Jules Verne’s 1870 classic, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.)