Hlcopters photo by ©Hugo Ramos.
October 2, 2024, Operation of the Spanish Tax Agency. — The Customs Surveillance Service (Vigilancia Aduanera) of the Tax Agency (Agencia Tributaria) has intervened in waters south of Cartagena a sailboat that was transporting (according to initial estimates) more than 4.5 tons of hashish.
The operation, which took place in the Southern Mediterranean, also led to the arrest of the two crewmembers of the vessel, of Spanish and Argentine nationality, respectively. This would be the largest seizure of a sailboat with hashish unloaded in Murcia in recent years.
This anti-drug operation was made as a result of the air and naval control carried out by the Customs and Special Taxes Department of the Tax Agency in the southeast of Andalusia, aimed at controlling the diversion of traditional routes for the introduction of narcotics due to the pressure exerted in the Strait.
The operation began when, in the early hours of the evening of Monday 30th, A Customs Surveillance Service AS365 N3 Dauphin 2 helicopter aircrew detected a suspicious object coming from the Spanish coast that was sailing south of the town of Águilas heading to North Africa, for which reason it was subjected to discreet control.
It was a 19.3-metre-long sloop-type sailboat flying the Polish flag, which was heading to a common drug transshipment area where there were several semi-rigid boats used in drug trafficking. Shortly after arriving in that ‘hot’ zone of drug smuggling, he radically changed course.
Given the well-founded suspicions that the sailboat may have been carrying illicit substances, it was controlled and monitored, and the Customs Surveillance Service patrol boat ‘Arao’, based in Alicante, was dispatched to the area and intercepted once it was located 90 nautical miles south of Cartagena.
After approaching the sailboat, the Customs Surveillance Service officers were able to see with the naked eye a large number of burlap and raffia bundles, the type commonly used to transport hashish, and so they proceeded to board it.
As a result of the intervention, the two crewmembers of the sailboat were arrested and the drugs were seized.
The detainees, the seized drugs and the intervened sailboat have been taken to the Port of Cartagena, where they have already been placed at the disposal of the competent judicial authority.
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