An abandoned narco-submarine found adrift in the Arousa estuary

A semi-submersible drug vessel was located this Monday by a fishing boat that was sailing in the waters of the Arousa estuary, off the coast of Vilagarcía.

The notice mobilized numerous members of the Civil Guard, including divers from the Pontevedra Command, who inspected the ship in search of possible shipwrecked persons and a cache of drugs, probably cocaine.

The police device was operating from the Vilaxoán port dock where an attempt will be made to refloat the ship.

There are already three vessels of this type to transport drugs found in Galicia, the Monday after Colombia reported the detection in its waters of three narco-submarines this weekend.

The investigators do not rule out the possibility that the semi-submersible is empty and that the drug traffickers have managed to remove the drug and abandon it adrift to avoid being discovered in full operation, according to sources from the armed institute.

The sea and wind conditions have complicated the ship's rescue maneuvers, in which various members of the National Police, Customs Surveillance and a Maritime Rescue ship are also collaborating.

Around six in the afternoon, in the midst of a strong swell, they concluded the dives without being able to enter the ship, since the divers have not been able to open the hatch of the submersible, 15 meters long, as reported by the Civil Guard.

The almost vertical position of the boat, of which only the tip of the prow emerging from the water is visible, has made the work of specialists difficult.

The operation will resume this Tuesday to decide whether to directly raise the bathyscaphe and the docking point, which is probably the port of Vilagarcía de Arousa.

The ship has been inspected with an underwater drone.

Customs Surveillance sources have confirmed that it is a closed semi-submersible with similar characteristics to the one located off the coast of Aldán in November 2019. The cause of the sinking, whether it was deliberate or not, is still unknown, but the police suspect that it was The ship is linked to the two modern gliders that appeared stranded on the Ribeira beaches last February, equipped with powerful engines and fuel.

The investigators' hypothesis is that once the drugs were removed from the submersible, the two boats abandoned the three boats to save themselves after some setback arose in the unloading maneuvers.

i ️ A sub-delegation of the Government in Pontevedra flew over this morning to an area where a remarkable artifact was located in Vilaxoán, in the Ría de Arousa.

@maicalarriba follow closely the reflash operations carried out by @guardiacivil and @policia.

Also operates @salvamentogob pic.twitter.com/MogE5K8Lyl

– Government Delegation in Galicia (@DelGobGalicia) March 13, 2023

This is the third semi-submersible located in the Rías Baixas since the drug traffickers made a first attempt to pick up a shipment of 750 kilos of pure cocaine to a mother ship on August 25, 2006, but its navigation capacity was a fiasco and a botch. its construction in a warehouse in Gondomar (Pontevedra).

It was commissioned by a cartel that wanted to test in Spain the latest invention of Colombian cocaine traffickers to shield their shipments to the US and Europe.

Despite the meticulous plan, all the naval engineering work undertaken by the narcos

Galicians became a resounding failure and a scam for their South American partners who financed the device.

The six accomplices of this failed operation were sentenced to a minimum sentence of two years for a crime of conspiracy for drug trafficking after confessing the facts.

The preparations go back to 2005, when the Colombians arranged the transport with a Galician organization.

The drug owners paid the group at least 100,000 euros for the construction and provisioning of the submersible and the purchase of the accompanying sailboat.

The first launch, on August 4, 2006, was frustrated due to mechanical problems.

Eight days later the device tried to set sail, but the only crew member, fearful that the oxygen coming through a tube was not enough, opted to disembark.

Seeing the one that was coming on top of him, his boss decided to abandon the bathyscaphe in the middle of the Vigo estuary.

He faked his arrest by the police so that the Colombian cartel tried to transport the drugs on the sailboat and, the next morning, the police managed to locate the submarine floating near the Cíes Islands.

Police operation in Vilagarcía de Arousa (Pontevedra) after the appearance this morning of a narco-submarine adrift in the Arousa estuary, related to the appearance of narco-boats in Ribeira (A Coruña) last week.ÓSCAR CORRAL

The following semi-submersible was seized in November 2019 with three tons of cocaine inside and, although it was made by hand, it managed to cross the Atlantic and barely reach the Ría de Vigo in the middle of a strong storm.

Although its three crew members are serving an 11-year prison sentence, the investigation was closed without being able to reach the owners of the high-purity cocaine;

a cargo valued at 123 million euros.

It was a second warning that the naval technology of the narco was making its way into Europe to secure its shipments with the expert Galician navigators and their fast gliders.

The discovery of the last semi-submersible this Monday in Galicia coincides with the chain arrest by the Colombian Armed Forces of three others this weekend, an unusual event that highlights the multiplication of these vessels in the hands of the drug traffickers they control. the production.

These specific vessels have been attributed to the guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to transport between four and six tons of cocaine hydrochloride each.

Image provided by Customs Surveillance of the narco-submarine, which is the peak that stands out on the right.

The rest is sunk.

The artifacts belong to the groups Segunda Marquetalia and Comando Coordinador de Occidente of the FARC dissidences, which operate in the department of Nariño, in the Colombian Pacific. "The military operations were carried out by troops from the Marine Infantry Brigade No. 4 over the rural areas of the municipalities of La Tola, Tumaco and Mosquera, where they located the three semi-submersibles of approximately 23 meters in length each, ready to transport cocaine hydrochloride abroad where it would be marketed," the authorities reported.

In the registry, they found different elements that would be used for the adaptation and maintenance of the boats.

The military personnel towed them to the Tumaco Municipality Port Authority sector, where the personnel of the Technical Investigation Corps (CTI) carried out the legal proceedings for their subsequent destruction," the Military Forces explained, according to the RNC radio station, which has spread Europa Press.

This operation affects the armed groups of Nariño, reducing their logistical capacity (of the illegal armed groups) to finance their illegal activities, avoiding the transport and commercialization of more than 12 tons of cocaine hydrochloride in the international illegal market.

Image of the drug submarine found in 2019 in the Pontevedra estuary. OSCAR CORRAL