Intercepted a fishing boat with more than 1,500 kilos of cocaine near the coast of the Canary Islands

A joint operation by the Civil Guard, the National Police and the Customs Surveillance Service has intercepted a fishing boat with more than 1,500 kilos of cocaine in the waters near the Canary Islands. The operation has resulted in the arrest of the six crew members of the boat, and has been carried out in conditions of meteorological difficulty, as reported by the Ministry of the Interior. This is the fifth major cocaine haul captured this year in the Atlantic in the waters surrounding the islands.

In the early hours of Thursday to Friday, the Condor patrol boat of Customs Surveillance intercepted the fishing vessel Efesios 5-20, of Brazilian flag, about 278 kilometers south of the archipelago. The intercepted boat had inside 1,500 kilos of cocaine divided into 60 bales, according to the estimates of the agents who have participated in the operation. The narcotic substances were inside a special compartment built in the ship's engine room, a noisy area with high temperatures, which made it difficult for agents to find the merchandise.

📽️ Impressive joint operation of @policia and @guardiacivil in collaboration with @aduanassva

In the video, the boarding from the patrol boat 'Condor' to the fishing boat 'Efesios 5-20', 150 miles south of #Canarias

Result: 6 detainees and 1,500 kg of cocaine seized 👏👏 pic.twitter.com/plnQoTI2tq

— Ministry of Interior (@interiorgob) May 12, 2023

To this adversity have been added another, an entry of water in the engine room that forced to stop the engines of the ship during the night. In addition, the operation was carried out in conditions of force 7 storm, which means winds of around 60 kilometers per hour and waves that can exceed four meters in height.

The operation culminated this Friday when the patrol boat Condor has arrived at the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to unload the drug. The six crew members of the fishing boat have been arrested. Five of them were of Brazilian nationality, including their captain, and one of Venezuelan nationality, and all have already been brought to justice.

The operation is the result of international collaboration through the Center for Analysis against Maritime Drug Trafficking in the Atlantic (MAOC) and has been coordinated by the Center for Intelligence with Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO).

This is the fifth major cocaine shipment that Spanish security forces have captured this year in the vicinity of the Canary Islands. The total balance of these operations is more than 14.1 tons seized, adding to the 1,500 kilos of this Friday the 4,500 that were found on board the merchant Blume and the cattle transport ship Orion, the 2,500 in the Mambo sailboat, and another 1,139 kilos in two other sailboats, all of them in January of this year. In all these interventions, 57 people have been arrested.

The action against Ephesians 5-20 is in addition to those already carried out in the fight against drug trafficking on the Atlantic cocaine route, used by sailboats, fishing boats and merchants who, coming from South America and the Caribbean, transship narcotic substances in the middle of the Atlantic to then introduce them into Europe.