BOGOTA -- Colombian authorities have captured two leaders of a 20-ton-per-year cocaine operation that sent drug-laden submarines to the world's top drug consumer, the United States, local police said on Tuesday.

Colombia, the world's No. 1 cocaine producer, has been wracked for decades by violence that made large swaths of the Andean nation off limits as drug gangs, leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries fought for control of a business measured in billions of dollars.

"As a result of an investigation of more than six years, the national police ... captured two of those responsible for sending cocaine to North America using self-propelled, semi-submersible vessels, with (shipments) averaging 20 tons of drugs annually," the police said in a statement.

Colombia, where drug traffickers take advantage of dense jungles and forests and a weak state presence in some areas, has received billions of dollars in aid from Washington to fight cocaine output, leftist rebels and cartels.

On Monday, the Coast Guard announced it had seized 15,000 pounds of cocaine -- worth $180 million -- in a semisubmersible vessel intercepted two weeks ago off the coast of Honduras.

The seizure off the east coast of Honduras marks the first time such a vessel has been seen in the Caribbean, officials said.

The semisubmersible vessels are believed to have been constructed on the banks of jungle rivers in Colombia. They are built of fiberglass and wood, and designed to sit low in the water to avoid radar detection. The boats are painted to blend in with the sea surface. They have no registration numbers, no identifying insignia, and no running lights. Most important, they are built with scuttling valves that allow the captain and crew to sink the vessel within moments of being detected by authorities.

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