Drug Traffickers Using ‘Parasite Smuggling’ to Diversify Risk, Experts Say

Brian Townsend, a retired DEA special agent, said narcotics traffickers ‘adapt all the time to avoid enforcement and our interdiction operation.’

U.S. Border Patrol's BORSTAR divers check below the waterline for drugs beneath a ship at the port of Miami, Fla., on Sept. 23, 2025. Courtesy of U.S. Border Patrol

Although drug seizures in the United States have risen slightly year-over-year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), traffickers continue to find increasingly ingenious ways to bring narcotics into the country.

U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) Chief Michael Banks said in a Sept. 25 post on X that his agency’s Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue Unit (BORSTAR) used specialized underwater cutting tools to extract 8 pounds of cocaine from the belly of a ship in the port of Miami two days earlier.