Exciting footage of "smugglers" chased on the high seas

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/11/16/exciting-footage-of-smugglers-chased-on-the-high-seas.html

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You can pull a pit manuver in water?

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I do speak Spanish. It is indeed from Spain. They speak perfect accent from Andalucia. They tell themselves to play cool. They are scared.

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Fair enough. Thanks for setting me straight

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that does NOT look like fun to me. yikes.

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Also speak Spanish and there was some disagreements in the cabin with some people freaking out about the coast guard and some people trying to calm the mood. Due to the accents there was some bits i couldn’t quite catch :stuck_out_tongue: I was halfway expecting shots to start ringing out but that’s certainly scary

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So what does “pee-low-toe” mean?

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Piloto - Pilot

The one guy freaking out was screaming at the guy driving the boat

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So the smuggler equivalent of “Mom! Mom! Mommy! Mom! Mother! Mom! Mom!”

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Did the bigger ship simply ram their motor?

Man, I would dearly like not to be in a situation like that, where I can see the last few moments of my freedom flashing quickly before my eyes.

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Almost seems like it, frankly i’m surprised they didn’t just fire at the ship’s engines to disable it though i presume at that speed and weather it’s probably unsafe

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The pursuit boat here would be shooting from behind, which means the smugglers would also be in the line of fire. I think to shoot out the engines you’d need to parallel the boat.

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Making holes in boats is generally ill advised in all circumstances, more so in difficult weather. Whatever they are smuggling (probably hashish, possibly people), in neither case should it be a death sentence.

There is no certainty that they wouldn’t hit a person (try aiming a gun at a stationary target at those speeds in those conditions, nevermind a target moving in 3 dimensions). ALso no certainty that they wouldn’t sink the boat by accident.

Presumably they don’t know exactly what it happening on the fleeing boat - it could be smuggling, it could be a hostage, it could be a stolen boat, it could just be drunks. Hardly grounds for summary execution, especially without more information.

Of course, if they were US law enforcement…

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I’m trying to glean the wisdom of video recording your effort to out run the Coast Guards – nothing you can say in the heat of that moment is going to help you in Court.

All these drug smugglers and they won’t smuggle anything to me. ::smugs::

That boat looks kind of of underpowered for a smuggling vessel.

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smugglers

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All good points, i wasn’t advocating for harming the crew. I was wondering if shooting the engine was one way to stop the boat, i don’t know how other countries operate but a quick search does indicate that at least the US coast guard uses sharpshooters to disable boat engines. Would be keen to know if this happens elsewhere.

USCG is a military branch, more so than some other countries (e.g. Canada, where they are not a part of the Armed Forces and are currently combined with fisheries enforcement, sorta). I can see a military force having sharpshooters on board for such things (and especially in the land of the gun fetish).

No idea how Spain structures their coast guard or if it is considered military.

That was one Rad-ass boat! It looked like the Coast Guard was just playing with them.