6.5 tonnes of cocaine seized from ship off Canary Islands following tip from US, Spanish police say

Spanish police said Sunday they seized 6.5 tons of cocaine and arrested nine people after a U.S. tip led them to raid a ship off the Canary Islands a few days ago.

In a statement, police said the narcotics were hidden in the hold of the ship, which was flying the Tanzanian flag and had left Panama bound for Vigo, in northwestern Spain. The freighter, which measured approximately 177 feet long, had unusual structures on board that concealed the narcotics, authorities said.

The Drug Enforcement Administration, the US federal agency responsible for combating drug trafficking, provided key “information” that allowed the operation to be successful, according to the press release.

Police post video on social media showing officers in a speedboat intercepting the suspected drug smuggling vessel.

Spain is one of the main gateways for cocaine to Europe, due to its links with Latin America, where the drug is produced, and its geographical location in the southwest of the continent.

In June, police forces in several countries dismantled a drug trafficking network that used what authorities called high-speed “drug boats” to smuggle large quantities of cocaine from Brazil and Colombia to the Canary Islands. The ring supposedly used an abandoned shipwreck as a refueling platform for speedboats.

Spanish police made the largest seizure of cocaine in their history last October when they discovered some 13 tons hidden in a shipment of bananas to the southern port of Algeciras. National police said at the time that Ecuadorian police intelligence alerted Spanish authorities.

Large quantities of drugs have also recently been confiscated from ships in other parts of the world. Earlier this month, US Central Command confirmed that a Pakistani navy ship seized narcotics. worth more than $972 million sailboats in the Arabian Sea. Last month, the French navy seized almost 10 tons of cocaine worth more than $600 million worth of a fishing boat off the coast of West Africa.

In April, the United States Coast Guard confiscated approximately 10,000 pounds of cocaine from a fishing boat in the Atlantic Ocean.