Their power grew as the US stepped up anti-narcotics operations in the Caribbean and Florida.

Jagat Negi, a senior police official who runs the anti-narcotics operation, said Burmese traffickers visited villagers in southeastern Manipur last year and urged them to grow poppies, which produce the opium from which heroin is refined.

In 2006, a U.S. congressional report listed a number of PMCs and other enterprises that have signed contracts to carry out anti-narcotics operations and related activities as part of Plan Colombia.

The soldiers have been training the police and military in anti-narcotics operations to slow the export of cocaine into America.

Marco Provencio, a spokesman for the Treasury Ministry, said last year that Mexico spent about $1 billion annually for all of its anti-narcotics operations and purchases, about 1.4 percent of its total federal budget.

Police officials said that the attack highlighted the increasing dangers of anti-narcotics operations at Kennedy, through which a growing amount of drugs is being smuggled.

The OPV will enhance security in the Exclusive economic zone of Mauritius by carrying out anti-piracy, anti-smuggling and anti-narcotics operations.

Despite the setback, the United States told Mexico that it would soon deliver 50 helicopters and 4 C-26 surveillance aircraft for use in anti-narcotics operations.

Between 1999-2009 Manta Air Base was used by U.S. air forces to support anti-narcotics military operations and surveillance flights against Colombian drug trafficking cartels.

Instead of an anti-narcotics operation turning into a rescue mission when the submarines are scuttled and sinks, the crew can be arrested and charged.