Cocaine’s Captain Nemo

The drug dealer Colombians knew as "Captain Nemo," Enrique Portocarrero, designed and built as many as 20 fiberglass submarines for smuggling drugs from southern Colombia to Central America and Mexico. Each submarine was capable of carrying eight tons of cargo, the Los Angeles Times reports. "He had a marvelous criminal vision," Colombian navy Capt. Luis German Borrero said. "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." According to a spokesman from the Pentagon's anti-narcotics unit, as many as 60 such submarines could be operative. Portocarrero was arrested in Buenaventura last month, where he lived a double life as a shrimp fisherman.