Seized ‘narco submarine’ in Spain carrying 152 bales of cocaine
A 20-metre semi-submersible craft was intercepted off the coast of Galicia, north-west Spain, last Sunday following a joint operation with police forces from the UK, Portugal, the US and Brazil.
The operation began after the EU’s Maritime Analysis and Operation Centre told Spain’s counter-terrorism and organised crime intelligence centre that a suspicious craft carrying cocaine was crossing the Atlantic, headed for Spain, according to The Guardian.
An air-sea search was launched and more officers sent to reinforce the police presence around the Galician coast.
“Conditions at sea meant that the semi-submersible wasn’t able to deliver the drugs to a second vessel,” said a statement from Spain’s Guardia Civil.
“Its crew members then headed towards the coast, where they scuttled and abandoned the vessel. The manoeuvre was detected by a Guardia Civil patrol using night-vision goggles, who then noted the boat’s arrival point and the subsequent fleeing of its crew.”
The force said one person had been arrested at the scene wearing a wetsuit, while another had been captured at 9am on Sunday. The whereabouts of a third remains unknown.
“Although the use of these submarines is very common in the Americas, this is the first time that such a transportation system has been used [here].”
Galicia’s rías, or inlets, have long been a smuggler’s paradise, but in recent years local drug clans have used them as the main European entry point of Colombian cocaine.
A large portion of the three tonnes of cocaine smuggled aboard the submarine would have ended up on British streets, according to the UK National Crime Agency (NCA).
“It is highly likely a lot of this cocaine would have ended up on the streets of the UK, fuelling serious violence and impacting on the most vulnerable members of society,” Tom Dowdall, the NCA’s deputy director international said on Wednesday.
“Seizures like this are vital in disrupting and dismantling transnational crime groups trafficking deadly drugs, and ultimately protecting the public from the damage they cause.”
In a statement, Spain’s Guardia Civil said 3,000kg of cocaine, divided into 152 bales, had been removed from the vessel, which is now in the port of Aldán in the Galician province of Pontevedra. The estimated worth could be €100m.
Read the full article online.
Designing Narco submarines
According to H Sutton, writing in Forbes, “The Spanish narco submarine incident is significant. It has likely changed the game as far as narco submarine operations go, with a greater focus off Europe likely.
“It may be connected to an example captured over 5,000 miles away in the Eastern Pacific in January. The Spanish example is significant because it is the first of this type of vessel captured on the European side of the Atlantic. The inference is that this may have made a trans-Atlantic voyage, either towed or under its own power.
“The Spanish example is approximately twice the size of a prototypical narco submarine. Much of the increased size is likely to be dedicated to extra fuel for longer ranged trips.
“Narco submarine builders are believed to work for more than one customer. And often the vessels themselves carry products from more than one cartel. We can tell this because cocaine packages typically have a producer’s mark of some kind.
“But the probable family connection to the Pacific example reminds us that the drug trafficking organisations do not play within the same boundaries.”
Watch as the submarine is opened.
The submarine is refloated.
http://www.reuters.tv/v/P3W8/2019/11/27/suspected-narco-submarine-refloated-in-spain
