Mekong River, image (c) 2011 Robert Almeida

BEIJING (Dow Jones)–China suspended shipping along Southeast Asia’s Mekong River on Monday after attacks on Chinese cargo vessels left 13 sailors dead in what authorities say is the latest case of drug-related violence in the region.

Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle–the region where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet–is one of the top-producing regions for heroin and other illicit drugs and home to violent narcotics gangs. China’s state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Thai authorities as saying the Chinese cargo vessels were hijacked in an attempt to smuggle drugs further downriver. Drugs often travel through the Thai capital of Bangkok on their way to international markets.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said at a daily news briefing Monday that the Chinese government had appealed to Thailand to boost shipping safety on the river. “The Foreign Ministry and other relevant departments and regions will continue to closely follow development of the incident,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin.

(This story and related background material will be available on The Wall Street Journal website, WSJ.com.)

Xinhua quoted a Thai official as saying its personnel would aid the Chinese investigation and that it will cooperate with Chinese and Laotian officials to protect commercial shipping interests in the region.

Thai border troops seized the vessels and drugs on board on Wednesday after a gun battle with hijackers. The Chinese sailors’ bodies were discovered in northern Thailand between Friday and Monday, according to Xinhua. It wasn’t immediately clear when the vessels were hijacked.

The decision to suspend shipping along the Mekong was handed down by officials in China’s southwestern Yunnan province. Li Hui, a spokesman for Yunnan’s foreign affairs department, said the decision had been requested by a local shipping association and by Chinese sailors out of safety concerns. Li said the length of the suspension depended on an ongoing investigation into the hijacking.

The suspension of shipping is unlikely to disrupt major trade flows as boats along the Mekong typically serve local communities and aren’t connected to major economic centers.

-By Brian Spegele, The Wall Street Journal

The Coast Guard may lower this rate if, for two consecutive years, the drug test positive rate is less than 1.0 percent, in accordance with 46 CFR 16.230(f)(2).

Download 76 Fed. Reg. 1448 (January 10, 2011).

The USCG has intercepted another DIY Semi-Submersible operated by drug smugglers. CNN tells us:

In the past three months the Coast Guard has learned of more semi-submersible vessels smuggling drugs than it did in the previous six years, when there were 23 cases, officials said.

U.S. Coast Guard intelligence officers predict 85 cases this year and 120 next year.

In some instances, the semi-subs are towed behind other vessels and are scuttled if they are detected, Allen said. Authorities are investigating reports that some semi-subs are unmanned and are operated remotely, he said.

Diplomatic agreements give the U.S. Coast Guard drug-interdiction jurisdiction in partner countries’ waters.

Encounters have become so frequent — and the dangers of boarding the vessels so pronounced — that the Coast Guard is pushing for legislation that would make the use of “unflagged” semi-submersibles in international waters a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison, even if authorities can’t recover drug evidence because the smugglers scuttle the transports.

“There’s really no legitimate use for a vessel like this,” Allen said.

Earlier this year Eaglespeak and Coast Guard News gave us tour of a similar design:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Despite the cool factor these submarines have one fatal flaw that makes them poor candidates for smuggling efforts. ZeroSix fills us in:

The main problem with real subs is that they are not much more effective than the “semi-submersibles” that are coming out of Colombia (and even Europe). Submarines can only travel underwater, on battery power, for a short time. Otherwise, they are on the surface, or in a “semi-submersible” state, running on diesel power.

The most stunning failure, however, has to be the 100-foot vessel found inside a Bogota warehouse in 2000. The BBC reported:

Police in Colombia say they have found a half-built submarine in a warehouse in a suburb of the capital Bogota.

Police chief General Luis Ernesto Gilibert said Russian documents were found alongside the partially-completed vessel.

He said the 30 metre (100ft) vessel would have been capable of carrying huge quantities of cocaine or heroin.

He speculated that, once completed, the submarine would have been disassembled and taken by lorry to to Colombia’s Pacific or Caribbean coast.

To learn how to build your own submarine check out SubmarineBoat’s Link Page, just make sure to avoid any large ships during the trial run. A warning this NYC artist most likely ignored.