A joint operation by the National Police, Civil Guard and the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency has managed to intercept a semi-rigid boat with 4,350 kilos of cocaine about 500 miles south of the Canary Islands. The drug boat, as reported by the National Police, came from South America and would be part of an international operation to reach Spanish coasts.
After the interception and boarding of the drug boat, its four crew members of Spanish, Romanian, Moroccan and Moldovan nationalities were arrested. Among them is a Galician drug trafficker known to the Security Forces and Corps.
This type of boat, used in the Atlantic, requires regular assistance to be supplied with both water and food and fuel, supplies that are delivered by other sports, fishing or semi-rigid boats of the same type. Hence, the operation is not considered closed, so the possible presence in the area of ??other vessels that could be involved is being investigated. New actions are not ruled out.
The operation has been developed within the framework of the fight against drug trafficking in the so-called ‘Atlantic cocaine route’, known for being used by all types of vessels that, coming from South America, transship narcotic substances in the middle of the Atlantic. for its subsequent introduction to the European continent. It has been made known at a time when drug boats have come to the fore in the media after one of them took the lives of two civil guards last Friday in Barbate (Cádiz).
The action has been directed and coordinated by the Anti-Drug Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court. Both the detainees, the boat and the narcotic substance will be placed at the disposal of the corresponding Central Investigative Court.
The operation began as a consequence of international collaboration, through the exchange of information between the MAOC-N (Atlantic Analysis and Operations Center) and the CITCO (Intelligence Center Against Terrorism and Organized Crime), which was investigation by Customs Surveillance, National Police and Civil Guard. The National Crime Agency (NCA) of the United Kingdom and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) of the United States have collaborated in the operation.
It has been directed and coordinated by the Anti-Drug Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court. Both the detainees, the boat and the narcotic substance will be placed at the disposal of the corresponding Central Investigative Court.
