The boat was intercepted in the mid-Atlantic off the Canaries and there were eleven arrests. The total weight of the cocaine was 2,500 kilograms or 5,506 pounds.
The investigation was part of Operation Hurricane, said the head of the police’s organised-crime unit, Eloy Quiros.
“We’re talking about an organised group that already has much experience; about communications in code, via Internet; about continual changes in telephones and use of foreign telephones to make the police work harder,” said Quiros. In all, authorities seized 80 bundles of cocaine on board the fishing boat RÍo Manzanares, registered in Venezuela but flying no flag, making the vessel a so-called “pirate boat,” and on which were five crew members, who were arrested.
The shipment was unloaded at the Las Palmas Military Arsenal..
Quiros said that the seizure of the drug was the first phase of the operation and that the second phase ended in the north-western Spanish region of Galicia, where another six people were arrested, including both high-level traffickers and people involved with transporting the cocaine.
The “narco-transporters” who were arrested include four Galician businessmen and shipowners linked with the fishing industry.
“They own companies and boats whose ultimate aim was the importation of fish and they used them (for drug smuggling) because they’re going through serious economic difficulties. That means that they were tempted ... with quick and enormous profits” in exchange for supporting the drug operation with their infrastructure, “ Quiros said.
Among the drug traffickers who were arrested were representatives of South American cartels, the police official said.
Quiros did not rule out more arrests in South America as the operation continues.
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