National Police officersin an operation that has had the collaboration of the Spain navy, They have boarded a narcosailing boat in international waters that was heading to the Spanish coasts with 50 bales containing 1,500 kilograms of cocaine. In addition to arresting his four crew, the ship has sunk in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean due to the poor state it was in and the danger it posed to the people on board.
This is an international operation – coordinated by the Special Anti-drug Prosecutor– in which the British agency has also collaborated NCA, the American and Italian authorities, CITCO and MOC-N (Lisbon). The investigation represents a police coup against criminal organizations in the East, leaders in drug trafficking by sea, this being the sixth vessel seized in just five months.
The first investigations began in early 2022 when the agents received information about people who were allegedly going to use Spain as a logistics point to carry out a large cocaine operation. From that moment on, police actions were deployed to identify the members of one of the most active criminal groups established in our country.
With the advancement of research, the agents detected in a port of Alicante the sailboat that was going to be used by the organizationand fully identified their crew members. The shipwhich claimed to fly the US flag, sailed up Tenerife where he ended up providing false information and changing his flag to that of Bulgaria.
They loaded the drug in the Caribbean and began their journey to Spain
At first, those investigated traveled from Tenerife to South Americaarriving to Brazil, where they had to repair the boat to be able to navigate to the Caribbean. At the end of last April, once they finished fitting out the sailboat, they sailed from the island of St. Lucia to the south in order to receive the illicit merchandise that had been agreed to transport to our country.
Once loaded the 50 bales of cocainethe boat started heading to Spain facing the difficult conditions of the Atlantic Ocean and correcting the different mechanical problems that arose.
Once all the evidence had been collected, at the end of May a joint maritime operation was carried out between the National Police and the Spanish Navy that ended with the boarding of the sailboat more than a thousand nautical miles from Spain.
Seized 50 bales with 1,500 kilos of cocaine
The agents dThey detained the four crew members of the boat -of Bulgarian, French and Swedish origin- and located 50 bales that the investigated could not hide in the structure of the boat. The seized narcotic substance yielded an approximate gross weight of 1,500 kilos of cocaine. Likewise, the vessel was sunk in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean due to the poor condition in which it was found and the danger it entailed for the people who were on board.
This is an international operation -coordinated by the Special Anti-drug Prosecutor’s Office- that has also had the collaboration of the British agency NCA, the American and Italian authorities, the CITCO (Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime) and the MOC -N (Center for Analysis and Maritime Operations in the field of Drug Trafficking, based in Lisbon).
The investigation represents a police coup against criminal organizations in the East, leaders in drug trafficking by sea, this being the sixth vessel seized in just five months. In addition, it raises to 13 tons of cocaine seized since the beginning of 2023.
