Brasilia, December 22 (teleSUR-RHC)-- Brazilian authorities said Monday they had discovered a small submarine packed full of cocaine.

Police say drug smugglers had planned to use the submarine to transport as much as 20 kilograms of cocaine to the United States and Europe.  However, the imaginative plot was thwarted by local fishers in Para state, who reported seeing a small submarine in a river.
       
The 17-meter vessel could have carried as many as 30 people, and was likely financed by a Colombian cartel, police suspect.  No arrests were made during the seizure of the submarine, with police stating the smugglers fled before officers arrived at the scene.

The submarine scheme is one of the least orthodox smuggling plots uncovered by Brazilian authorities since they began a series of major crackdowns on the drug trade in recent years.

In June 2011, Brazil launched the Strategic Border Plan, aimed at monitoring systems and targeting routes used by drug traffickers. The Strategic Border Plan has two main pillars —Operation Sentinel, managed by the Ministry of Justice, and Operation Ágata- which is the responsibility of the Ministry of Defense.

The initiatives were launched as Brazil emerged as a major cocaine exporter to Europe and North America.