Kingpin Credited With Innovating Use Of Narco Subs Sentenced To Federal Prison In Tampa

TAMPA, FL — After years of evading the U.S. Coast Guard and Drug Enforcement Administration agents by smuggling cocaine into the United States using mini submarines, a 35-year-old Colombian native is headed to federal prison.

Referred to in the Colombian media as the "Prince of Semi-Submersibles," Oscar Adriano Quintero Rengifo, aka Guatala, 35, was sentenced to 20 years and 10 months in federal prison Monday by Tampa U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell.

Quintero Rengifo was arrested in Colombia and extradited to the United States on Jan. 26, 2022. He pleaded guilty on May 20, 2022.

From as early as January 2015 through September 2019, the U.S. Coast Guard interdicted four vessels, including two semi-submersible vessels, used by Quintero Rengifo's drug cartel to smuggle more than 13,000 kilograms of cocaine into the United States.

There's no way of knowing the number of times Quintero Rengifo successfully smuggled cocaine into the U.S. using the mini subs.

Over the years, smugglers have used small-engine planes, yachts, fishing boats with secret compartments in their hulls and people recruited as drug mules who conceal drugs using a variety of methods including swallowing bags of cocaine and then flying into the United States on commercial planes.

In the 1980s, drug smugglers began high-speed cigarette boats to evade the Coast Guard's slower cutters and patrol ships. However, the Coast Guard countered with what it called "Go-Fast Vessels" launched from patrol ships to catch the smugglers' power boats.

Quintero Rengifo is credited with coming up with one of the most effective methods of smuggling drugs using semi-submersible vessels and mini submarines to avoid detection by the Coast Guard patrol boats.

He customized the semi-submersibles typically used on drilling platforms and mini submarines used for underwater scientific exploration to smuggle drugs from South America into the United States.

The so-called narco subs were adapted to carry large quantities of drugs.

On Nov. 5, 2020, the U.S. Naval Institute reported that the Colombian Navy, assisted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, raided a boatyard and discovered a high-capacity electric narco submarine estimated to cost $1.5 million to construct. The DEA estimated that it would have carried at least 6 metric tons of cocaine, valued at around $120 million, to the U.S.

Until then, most narco submarines interdicted by the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard carried around 1.6 metric tons of cocaine, worth approximately $30 to 35 million.

According to the investigation into Quintero Rengifo's transnational criminal organization, he smuggled cocaine from South America to Central America using semi-submersibles that ran on batteries to power its electric motors that could stay charged for about 12 hours.

So, the subs would be towed by a larger vessel and then released when they were close enough to reach Guatemala, Mexico or the U.S. on their limited battery charge.

A former mayor in Guatemala, who controlled drug routes in northern Guatemala into Mexico, oversaw the smuggling of cocaine to Mexican cartel members, according to the DEA.

The case was investigated by the Panama Express Strike Force, a standing Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force comprised of agents and analysts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service, and the U.S. Southern Command's Joint Interagency Task Force South.

The Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs and the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section Judicial Attachés in Bogotá, Colombia, assisted in arresting and extraditing Quintero Rengifo to the United States with the help of the government of Colombia and the Colombian Office of the Attorney General.