
One of the Policía Nacional H135 helicopter fleet at Vigo base (Galicia).
Hlcopters photo by Hugo Ramos.
A joint Spanish operation conducted by Policía Nacional and Guardia Civil finished with the seizure of over 1 ton (specifically 1100 kg) of cocaine in Galicia, in the town of Vilanova de Arousa (Pontevedra).
By the end of 2024, there had been intelligence indicating that a go-fast type of vessel would depart from Galicia, with the objective of collecting a significant amount of cocaine from a vessel departing from South America. From that moment, several international partners started working together with the Spanish authorities aiming to identify these targets, as well as the criminal organization behind this drug trafficking venture.
The investigations detected that at the end of December, a high-speed boat, equipped with three 450 hp engines each, set out into the Atlantic with four people on board, travelling towards a specific geographical point to obtain the illicit cargo. The intention of this criminal organisation was to bring the cocaine load to a remote point on the Galician coast and transfer it to a van that would transport it overland to a possible storage site. However, they did not foresee the strong police force that had meanwhile been set up by the Spanish authorities, who managed to arrest the four crew members of the speedboat, as well as three other individuals who were prepared to provide logistical support on land. In total, seven people of Albanian nationality were arrested.
Besides the already mentioned Spanish forces, this international operation was also supported by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Portuguese Judicial Police (Policia Juficiaria) and the French Customs (DNRED) working together within the scope of MAOC-N.
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