On Monday, January 12, Spanish authorities announced the dismantling of the largest maritime cocaine seizure in the country’s history during a transnational anti-drug operation known as “White Tide”.
Law enforcement intercepted a cargo ship departing from Brazil in international waters and discovered 9,994 kilograms (nearly 10 metric tons) of cocaine hidden beneath a large shipment of salt.
According to Reuters, this record-breaking bust took place on the “trans-Atlantic drug route” that connects South America with Europe.
The vessel in question was flying the flag of Cameroon. Following a police raid on board, the ship ran out of fuel and was ultimately towed to the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands by the coast guard.
Authorities stated that the drug traffickers had divided the cocaine into 294 bundles, deeply buried under hundreds of tons of salt, in an attempt to confuse sniffer dogs with the physical properties of the salt.
As reported by the Associated Press, the seizure of such a massive quantity on a single vessel is extremely rare, leading to this operation being classified as “one of the largest maritime drug busts in Europe in recent years”.
Images released by the Spanish police showed special forces digging through the salt piles with shovels and manually moving packages of drugs. Besides the drugs, a handgun was also seized on board.
According to the Spanish newspaper El País, this operation was a result of international cooperation and intelligence sharing, leading to the arrest of 13 individuals involved in the case.
Coordinated by the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre – Narcotics (MAOC-N), participating agencies included the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of the United States, Brazil’s Federal Police, the National Crime Agency (NCA) of the United Kingdom, as well as law enforcement authorities from France and Portugal.
Spanish authorities stated that this case broke the country’s record for drug busts in international waters. While larger drug seizures have been made in port containers last year, intercepting nearly 10,000 kilograms of drugs on the high seas is exceptionally rare. This indicates that drug trafficking groups are attempting to use larger bulk carriers to evade port inspections.