Simon Hunter
AUTHORITIES in the northwestern Spanish region of Galicia have discovered a home-made semi-submersible vessel – a craft that is more commonly known as a ‘narco-submarine’.
The discovery was made on Monday in the Arousa inlet, around a mile off the coast of a municipality called Vilaxoan.
This marks the third such craft that has been located in the area, after the discovery of a similar submarine in 2006 in Vigo, and another in November 2019. In the latter case, there were three tons of cocaine on board the vessel.
The Civil Guard is in charge of the investigation, according to local newspaper La Voz de Galicia, and by Monday afternoon it was still unclear whether there were drugs on board or if criminals had managed to offload them. There was also no news of any crew.
It was confirmed, however, that the appearance of the sub is related to a pair of speedboats that appeared several weeks ago beached in nearby Ribeira. Investigators believe that the boats were due to be used to offload the submarine, which measures some 16 metres long.
Galicia has long been a point of entry for smuggled contraband, first for cigarettes at the end of the Spanish Civil War and then in the 1980s for narcotics such as heroin and cocaine.
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