TECHNOLOGY: Authorities in Awe of Drug Runners’ Jungle-Built, Kevlar-Coated Supersubs.

And there was something else hastily abandoned in a narrow estuary: a 74-foot camouflaged submarine—nearly twice as long as a city bus—with twin propellers and a 5-foot conning tower, beached on its side at low tide. “It was incredible to find a submarine like that,” says rear admiral Carlos Albuja, who oversees Ecuadorean naval operations along the northwest coast. “I’m not sure who built it, but they knew what they were doing.”

So what are people building that we haven’t found? “The prospect of Colombian drug traffickers running their own private navy poses problems that won’t be solved with a few arrests.”