Nearly four tonnes of cocaine worth an estimated $260m (\u00a3200m) have been seized by international law enforcement officers in the Atlantic.<\/p>\n
The drugs were found on a boat between Portugal’s Madeira and Azores islands.<\/p>\n
Officials found 165 individual packages of cocaine weighing 23kg – a total of 3.7 tonnes – concealed beneath the vessel’s cooking area.
\nIt is not clear where the drugs were being taken to.<\/p>\n
The Comoros-flagged vessel was towed into the Spanish port of C\u00e1diz on Friday after Spanish officials received intelligence from the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA).<\/p>\n
The crew, from Turkey and Azerbaijan, were arrested.<\/p>\n
The operation was jointly conducted by Spanish customs and police and the NCA under the overall co-ordination of the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre-Narcotics (MAOC-N) in Lisbon.<\/p>\n
“Seizing this quantity of cocaine represents a major disruption to international crime groups, depriving them of revenue potentially running into the hundreds of millions of pounds,” NCA spokesman Mark Blackwell said.<\/p>\n
There have been two other big Atlantic drug busts in recent months.<\/p>\n
Thirteen Spanish citizens of Moroccan origin were arrested on Monday over what is believed to be a record seizure of cocaine in the North African country, officials there said.<\/p>\n
Police were reported to have seized more than 2.5 tonnes of the drug, with a street value of hundreds of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n
The cocaine was thought to have come from Venezuela on its way to Europe or the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n
Morocco’s investigations chief Abdelhak Khiam said South American drug cartels were using smuggling routes through sub-Saharan countries where he said there was “little control”.<\/p>\n
The Portuguese navy and air force is also reported to have carried out a drugs seizure on Thursday after intercepting a yacht suspected of transporting cocaine to the country from the Caribbean.<\/p>\n
The vessel was stopped about 965km (600 miles) south of the Azores, Portugal News Online reported, and was carrying a large amount of “highly pure” cocaine believed to be worth about $23.5m (\u00a318m).<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nearly four tonnes of cocaine worth an estimated $260m (\u00a3200m) have been seized by international law enforcement officers in the Atlantic. The drugs were found on a boat between Portugal’s Madeira and Azores islands. Officials found 165 individual packages of cocaine weighing 23kg – a total of 3.7 tonnes – concealed beneath the vessel’s cooking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[645,646],"yoast_head":"\n