Santa Cruz de Tenerife (EFE) It has also led to the arrest of its 15 crew members.
The operation has been carried out by the Tax Agency, in collaboration with the National Police and the Civil Guard, and the intercepted freighter is the “Blume”, with the Togolese flag, whose boarding was carried out by the “Fulmar” Special Operations Vessel of the Security Service. Customs Surveillance of the Tax Agency.
The location of the ship was possible thanks to international collaboration, after investigators from the Customs Surveillance Service, National Police and Civil Guard, based on the exchange of information between the Atlantic Analysis and Operations Center (MAOC-N) and the Intelligence Center Against Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO), determine the possible involvement of a vessel suspected of illicit drug trafficking from South America.
As a consequence, the Deputy Directorate of Customs Surveillance of the Tax Agency established the aeronaval device and sent its ship “Fulmar” to locate and, finally, board the freighter at dawn on the 18th.
At the time of the boarding, it was observed that the freighter was transporting some 200 tons of coffee as declared merchandise, well below the actual cargo capacity of the ship, which drew the attention of the officials in charge of the operation.
Subsequently, in an inspection of the common areas of the cargo ship, the presence of an indeterminate number of bales of those usually used for cocaine trafficking was detected, for which reason the 15 crew members of the vessel were arrested. , two citizens of Albanian nationality and 13 of Pakistani nationality, as well as the intervention of the ship, which together with the detainees, has been transferred to the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
The Tax Agency has also detailed the difficulty of the boarding operation with very complicated conditions due to the situation of the sea and the large dimensions of the ship.
Despite this, he continues, the rapid action of the “Fulmar” and its crew has prevented a possible transshipment of the drugs to other vessels, which would have compromised the detection of the cache.
Both the detainees and the boat, the drug and the police proceedings will be turned over to the Central Investigating Court acting as guard of the National Court.
This operation, directed and coordinated by the Anti-drug Prosecutor of the National Court, is in addition to those carried out to date on the so-called “Atlantic Route” of cocaine, known for being used by fishing boats, merchants and freighters that, coming from South America, they transship narcotic substances in the middle of the ocean for their subsequent introduction into the European continent. EFE