The collaboration between Spain and Portugal in the fight against drug trafficking made it possible to seize a sailboat loaded with more than 5 tons of cocaine in Atlantic waters and detain three people, one of the largest apprehensions in Europe, official sources reported.
The drugs were seized on a sailboat used by drug trafficking networks to transport drugs between Latin America and Europe, using the Iberian Peninsula as a port of entry.
The boat transported 183 bales of cocaine with an estimated weight of 5.2 tons, “the largest seizure of this type of narcotics in Portugal in the last 15 years and one of the largest in Europe,” reported the Judicial Police (PJ) Portuguese in a statement.
During the operation, baptized as “Marea Blanca”, three men – two Spaniards and one Peruvian – residing in Spain and belonging to an international drug trafficking organization were arrested, according to police sources.
Among those arrested, a prominent and well-known ‘lanchero’ who was in search and capture for another cocaine transport that was thwarted in the month of March of last year.
The other two detainees did not have a criminal record, although they were known to the National Police investigators, given their close relationship with the members of one of the most important groups of ‘lancheros’ in the Ría de Arousa (Galicia, Spain).
Police investigations began earlier this year into a multinational organization allegedly dedicated to the export of vast quantities of cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela to Europe.
The work carried out by the Portuguese National Unit to Combat Narcotics Trafficking had the collaboration of the Spanish National Police, Navy and Air Force and was supported by the Center for Operations and Maritime Analysis of Narcotics, based in Lisbon, the US DEA, the UK National Crime Agency and the Colombian National Police.
In this investigation process, and through the information constantly exchanged by the anti-drug agencies involved, it was possible to identify those who carried out the storage and export of the narcotic from South America and those who distributed the drugs they received from Spain and Portugal to Europe.
At the beginning of August, the Center for Analysis and Maritime Operations on Drug Trafficking (MAOC) provided information about the sailboat that would imminently carry out the transport.
It was a Spanish boat that began the return trip to Spain in September, harboring an unusual load of cocaine that was addressed to customers who had purchased it at origin and who had the boats ready in the south of the peninsula. Iberian to pick it up.
The operation was precipitated on October 16, when the sailboat was located.
An assault team from the Portuguese Navy, accompanied by agents from the Spanish National Police and the Portuguese PJ, boarded the boat in which they discovered a significant number of bundles, similar to those usually made to transport cocaine.
Among the intervened effects, state-of-the-art frequency inhibition and communication systems that provided security for each of the illegal maneuvers that the crew members practiced since the start of the journey.
Even, both the name and the flag of the sailboat were false, in order to camouflage their criminal action.
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