John Culatto
SPANISH and British police have worked together to raid a sailing boat loaded with six tons of hashish 130 miles off the Huelva coast.
The National Police arrested three crew members in a joint operation ran in conjunction with the UK’s National Crime Agency and Italian authorities.
Investigations began in 2021, when authorities discovered that one of Spain’s most active criminal gangs had bought a sailing boat for drug trafficking.
In February, the boat, called ‘Bibi’ sailed to Italy, returning to Spain in March.
Investigators then tracked the boat on its journey to the Moroccan coast, where it loaded the cannabis resin.
From there it headed to the Huelva coast where the boat intended to unload its merchandise.
The arrests included its captain, who had previously been arrested on another similar drug trafficking run.
Agents also discovered a drone used to detect police activities in the area, security cameras and radio frequency detector with GPS capability.
The CITCO (Intelligence Centre against Terrorism and Organised Crime) and MAOC-N (Centre for Maritime Analysis and Operations in Drug Trafficking) took part in the raid.
This drug bust is expected to be a big hit at eastern criminal organisations aiming to smuggle illegal drugs into Spain by sea.
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