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ALMADA – Portuguese and Spanish authorities seized 5.2 tons of cocaine from an offshore sailboat and arrested three suspects, in Portugal’s largest drug bust in 15 years and a world record for boats from a sailboat, said the police on Monday.
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With bullets of cocaine stacked behind him at a naval base across the Tagus River from Lisbon, Luis Neves, director of Portugal’s criminal investigation police, said the loot represented the largest amount of cocaine ever seized from a sailboat. all over the world.
These large quantities are typically found on larger cargo ships and motorized vessels.
Authorities discovered 183 cloth sacks filled with cocaine, destined for the continental European market, inside the sailboat in the Atlantic Ocean, some 550 kilometers off the coast of Portugal.
“We are always waiting (for more drug trafficking) and this is the message we want to send to the organizations: we are waiting for them,” Neves said. “Those who have to fall will fall because this amount of drug is an immense fortune and a severe blow to criminal groups.”
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The crew, two Spaniards and one Peruvian, were arrested and will appear before a judge. Police suspect they are part of a powerful network of drug traffickers known for transporting drugs from Latin America to Europe.
Antonio Duarte, head of Spain’s police narcotics unit, said the men were already on the authorities’ radar and an arrest warrant had been issued for one of them.
The seizure comes as new gangs continue to flow into Europe’s cocaine markets, establishing smuggling networks that directly link Latin American producers to European consumers, according to the Lisbon-based EU drug agency Centro European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Addiction (EMCDDA).
Cocaine is the second most widely used illicit drug in Europe, the agency said in its 2021 report.
Reference-torontosun.com