The Civil Guard has intercepted a cargo ship on the high seas with a gigantic cache of cocaine in its hold that could total dozens of tons of this drug, according to sources familiar with the investigations. The first examinations inside the boat, called Arconiansuggest that the drugs he was transporting, still pending weighing, will reach record figures. The vessel entered the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria this Sunday at 7:45 p.m. local time. The police search and the bringing to justice of the crew are still pending.
The assault on the boat, carried out by agents of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, occurred last Friday, off the coast of Dakhla, a coastal city in Western Sahara. 23 people were arrested, the majority of Filipino and Dutch nationality, according to the sources consulted. The medium-sized ship left Sierra Leone on April 22 and was destined for Libya.
He Arconian It was sailing under the flag of the Comoros, an archipelago in Southeast Africa, located off the coast of Mozambique. It measures about 91 meters in length, approximately the size of a football field, and is about 15 meters wide. One hour before its arrival at the Las Palmas naval base, the ship has arrived Duke of Ahumada of the Civil Guard, which has participated in the police operation and whose functions include the fight against drug trafficking.
The largest stash of cocaine seized in Spain in a single operation. The drug was located in the Port of Algeciras in October 2024 and arrived in Spain hidden in a container from Ecuador and destined for Alicante. It was hidden among a load of bananas. At the beginning of 2026, the Police seized 9,994 kilos of cocaine on the high seas. This seizure is so far the largest seizure of cocaine in water in the history of this police force and the largest of the European police forces, according to sources in the investigation.
If the focus is broadened, one of the largest caches known to have been intercepted in 2019 in the United States and amounted to 20 tons of cocaine. The cargo was intercepted upon arrival at the Packer Marine Terminal in Philadelphia. The stash was valued at more than 1 billion dollars (852 million euros).
In 2024, the last year for which official data on drug seizures is available, Spanish security forces seized 123.8 tons of cocaine. 41% of this drug (51.7 tons) was seized in Andalusia, 22% in Catalonia (27 tons) and 15% in the Canary Islands (19 tons).
A large part of the anti-drug operations in recent years are being carried out in extraterritorial waters, areas in which authorities and police forces from different countries study who is left with investigations and procedures that are especially expensive. Spain has very broad possibilities of accepting or assuming jurisdiction over drug trafficking committed outside its territorial waters.
Drug trafficking from Latin America to Europe is . It is increasingly common to travel to the Atlantic to load drugs transported by freighters or fishing boats and take them to land. This causes police interventions to come forward, for fear that the drugs will be distributed.
These variations in dynamics are related to the pressure in the main ports, such as Antwerp (Belgium), Rotterdam (Netherlands) or in Spain, Algeciras, Valencia and Barcelona. The boost from the European Ports Alliance, a form of public-private cooperation launched in January 2024 by the EU, reduced seizures, but trafficking has not disappeared. The organizations devise new formulas, such as the use of narco-submarines, or divert their shipments to smaller ports, where there are not as many security measures.
