A cattle cargo ship
, which was on its way to Lebanon from Colombia, experienced a malfunction recently.
In an inspection conducted by the authorities in a Spanish port, it was discovered that no less than 4.5 tons of cocaine were removed from the cattle's food, a Lebanese newspaper reported today.
There were 28 crew members on the ship, holding nine different nationalities.
All were arrested on the spot by the local police.
It was also reported that 1,750 cattle were transported in the vessel.
According to the Reuters news agency, the Spanish police announced that they seized a shipment of cocaine to Lebanon, whose value is estimated at 114 million dollars, but a Spanish daily claimed that the real value reaches 150 million dollars.
According to the reports, the seizure was made during an operation conducted last Saturday on the ship passing through the Canary Islands controlled by Spain.
In addition, it was learned that the ship stopped during its voyage in 12 countries before the authorities in Spain discovered the cocaine.
Police said drug traffickers have recently started using animal cargo ships because they are harder to track and detect illegal goods.
It was also emphasized that international criminal organizations are renewing their smuggling methods to transport drugs from Latin America to Europe, this time while exploiting animals
Seized cocaine (picture for illustration), photo: Reuters
The police claimed that since 2020 they have been following the vessel because it is suspected of transporting significant amounts of drugs around the world.
Thus, for example, the ship passed through the ports of Libya, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar and other countries.
Currently it is not known if Hezbollah was involved in the drug smuggling attempt.
For years, the Lebanese terrorist organization has been running an international drug trafficking network centered around the sale of Captagon pills.
The drugs are smuggled, among other things, to Syria, from there to Jordan and then distributed to the Gulf countries.
Senior officials in the Assad regime are also involved in the trade
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