Agents of the Special Operations Group (GEO) of the National Police have boarded in the Atlantic Ocean about 600 miles (965 kilometers) from the Canary Islands a merchant ship that was transporting approximately 6,500 kilos of cocaine hidden in its holds, as explained this Sunday by the armed force. The ship, flying the Tanzanian flag and more than 54 meters in length, . The nine crew members of the boat were arrested in the operation.
The intervention was carried out under the direction of the Special Anti-Drug Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court and included the participation of the Spanish Navy, which facilitated the deployment and access to the ship on the high seas. The investigation was based on an alert transmitted on October 8 by the US anti-drug agency DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration), which had detected the movements of an international criminal organization allegedly dedicated to trafficking large shipments of cocaine across the Atlantic.
The shipment would have left the Panamanian port of Cristóbal Anch aboard a ship type supply shipa boat usually used for logistical support, but which, on this occasion, would have been adapted to hide drugs. Based on these data, the National Police, with support from the Navy, designed a location and tracking device to intercept the ship before it reached waters near Spain.
The collision occurred around 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 22. GEO agents accessed the ship from a Spanish military vessel, secured the vessel and detained all crew members without incident. During the first inspection, internal structures and compartments were located that did not correspond to a conventional cargo ship, which would have been built expressly to hide the narcotic.
The ship will be transferred to the Port of Arinaga, in Gran Canaria, where new exhaustive inspections and the final weighing of the seized drugs are planned. The operation, explains the Police, is part of international cooperation work against drug trafficking by sea, one of the routes most used by criminal organizations that operate between Latin America and Europe. The Anti-Drug Prosecutor’s Office considers that the seizure represents a “significant blow” to the logistical structure of the investigated group and continues to make progress in identifying those responsible and links in Spanish and foreign territory.
