Portuguese and Spanish authorities have seized 5.2 tonnes of cocaine from a sailboat on the excessive seas and arrested three suspects, in Portugal’s largest drug bust in 15 years and a world-record haul from a sailboat, police mentioned on Monday (October 18).
With the cocaine bales piled up behind him at a naval base throughout the river Tagus from Lisbon, Luis Neves, director of Portugal’s felony investigation police, mentioned the haul represented the biggest quantity of cocaine ever seized from a sailboat globally.
Normally such giant portions are discovered on cargo ships and greater motorized vessels.
Authorities found 183 fabric sacks stuffed with cocaine, destined for the continental European market, contained in the sailboat within the Atlantic Ocean, round 550 kilometers from Portugal’s coast.
“We’re all the time ready (for extra drug trafficking) and that is the message we wish to ship organisations: we’re ready for you,” Neves mentioned. “Those that need to fall will fall as a result of this quantity of medicine is an immense fortune and an enormous blow for felony teams.”
The crew members – two Spanish nationals and one Peruvian – have been arrested and can seem earlier than a choose. Police suspect they’re a part of a strong drug ring identified for transporting medicine from Latin America to Europe.
Antonio Duarte, head of Spain’s police narcotics unit, mentioned the lads had already been on authorities’ radar and an arrest warrant had been issued for one among them.
The seizure comes as new gangs proceed to muscle into cocaine markets in Europe, organising smuggling networks immediately linking producers in Latin America to European shoppers, based on the Lisbon-based EU medicine company, the European Monitoring Centre for Medicine and Drug Dependancy (EMCDDA).
Cocaine is the second mostly used illicit drug in Europe, the company mentioned in its 2021 report.