Spanish police announced on Saturday the seizure of 4.5 tons of cocaine off the Canary Islands aboard a Togolese cargo ship which came from Latin America.
The "
Orión V
", which transported cattle to countries in the Middle East, had been closely watched for more than two years: it had already been "
checked and searched, but no drugs could be found in the inside, despite the presence of sufficient clues
," the police explained.
A "
naval aviation
" device finally made it possible on Tuesday, January 24 to get their hands on the cocaine, hidden in a silo supposed to be used to feed livestock, she adds.
The operation, which mobilized among others the American anti-drug agency DEA, the international operational center for the analysis of maritime intelligence for narcotics (MAOC-N), the Togolese authorities and the Spanish police, made it possible to arrest the 28 crew members, of nine different nationalities.
The "
Orión V
" freighter, which was flying the Togolese flag, had the same dimensions as another Togolese freighter intercepted in mid-January in the same area, 62 miles south-east of the Canary Islands, the "
Blume
", on which the same amount of cocaine was found.
A total of nine tonnes of drugs were therefore seized in January, the police said in a statement.
Spain's close ties to South America, where the cocaine originates, make it one of the main gateways for drugs into Europe.
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