Five Spaniards have been arrested when the Senegalese Navy intercepted a fast motorized boat on the high seas this Friday with 690 kilos of cocaine that were destined for Europe, a Senegalese military spokesperson confirmed to EFE today. “The identity documents of the five people discovered indicate that they are of Spanish nationality. They have been made available to the competent services of the Senegalese Police,” Commander Baye, from the Information and Public Relations Directorate of the Forces, told EFE. Senegal Armed Forces (DIRPA).
The Navy reported this Saturday on the social network X (formerly Twitter) that the patrol boat “Walo” found the boat 220 kilometers from the coast and “The warning shots allowed the boat to be immobilized who was trying to escape after releasing his illicit cargo.” The Navy indicated that “690 kilograms of cocaine were recovered and returned to Dakar” as well as the boat and “its five crew members,” but then did not provide the nationalities of the detainees, confirmed today to EFE by the aforementioned spokesperson, who did not provide more details about those arrested.
“The national Navy remains determined to prohibit any passage of drugs into the Senegalese EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone),” the Navy added this Saturday. The Senegalese naval force took charge of the drugs after the same patrol vessel intercepted 16 tons of cocaine last day aboard the ship “NTEN FAYE”, south of Senegalese waters and 425 kilometers from the coast.
The Navy estimated the “minimum value” of that seizure at 126,000 million of CFA francs (about 192 million euros). Both the ship and its seven crew members were taken to the Amiral Faye Gassama naval base in Dakar. Long considered a transit zone for drugs produced in Latin America, West and Central Africa has become a region of high consumption, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). According to the UNODC, at least 57 tons of cocaine were seized in West Africa or en route to the region between 2019 and 2022.mainly in Cape Verde, Senegal and Benin
Source: Lasexta
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