Poorly paid crews risk their lives on voyages in ‘propeller-driven coffins’ to smuggle drugs from Brazil to Europe
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hat was going through the mariners’ minds, embarking on a voyage they must have feared they would not survive? How did they bid farewell to their loved ones before setting off? What had driven them to accept such a mission? The answers to those questions, like the identities of the sailors, remain a mystery to Brazilian police.
What investigators are certain of is the purpose of the vessel: a dungeon-like “narco-submarine” that they say was days away from starting a hellish three-week odyssey across the Atlantic carrying hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of cocaine to Europe.
“You could pay me as much money as you liked and I confess I wouldn’t go … on such an insane journey,” said Fernando Casarin, the federal police chief whose special forces recently captured the narco-sub on the eve of its departure from the Amazon.
