According to a September study in Fish and Fisheries, the use of small fishing vessels to smuggle illegal drugs is on the rise across the world as traffickers seek to take advantage of porous borders and the relatively murky laws governing international waters. The use of small vessels has tripled in the past eight years to represent about 15 percent of the total global retail value of illegal drugs. “The fishing sector is increasingly a vector for transporting drugs,” says Dyhia Belhabib, principal investigator with Ecotrust Canada, a nonprofit organization working to build a conservation-based economy and the lead author of the study.

Cont'd:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/number-small-fishing-vessels-smuggling-illegal-drugs-has-tripled-180976157/