Spanish police on Thursday mentioned they’d busted a community that noticed smugglers swim on the excessive seas to assist stash Colombian cocaine on Europe-bound container ships and hijack vessels. The bust was revealed simply three days after Spain introduced its largest-ever seizure of cocaine at sea.
The community employed a so-called “monkey” method, which used “children who’re good swimmers and from low-income households to load the drug on the vessels that had been on the excessive seas,” police mentioned in a assertion.
Different members of the scheme travelled to Spain to “raid the containers by intercepting the ships earlier than their arrival on the Gibraltar Strait,” a busy and slim physique of water separating Europe and North Africa.
Final yr, the crew of a ship certain for the southern Spanish port of Cadiz reported stowaways on the deck, with 1.3 tons of cocaine present in a container, police mentioned.
Shortly afterwards, one other ship passing via Portuguese waters raised the alarm about “the hijacking of the vessel” by armed stowaways who unloaded cocaine hid in a container.
The investigation found that the community allegedly retrieved the drug by throwing it overboard from service provider vessels to smaller, quicker boats near Europe, “subduing the ships’ crew and extracting the drug from the containers utilizing army methods and weapons of battle.”
The cocaine was then saved in southern Spain earlier than its transportation by highway to different European international locations.
The authorities made 30 arrests and seized 2.4 tons (5,291 kilos) of cocaine, military-grade weapons, ladders used to raid the ships, luxurious autos and money.
Police launched video of the operation on social media, exhibiting officers uncovering packages of alleged medicine in addition to money. The social media put up additionally included footage and pictures of one of many cargo ships that allegedly carried the medicine.
Spain’s shut ties with Latin America and proximity to Morocco, a high hashish producer, make it a key entry level for medicine into Europe.
On Monday, Spanish police introduced their largest-ever seizure of cocaine at sea after impounding a Europe-bound container ship within the Atlantic Ocean carrying nearly 10 tons of the drug.
Final October, Spanish police seized 6.5 tons of cocaine and arrested 9 individuals after a U.S. tip-off led them to raid a ship off the Canary Islands.
In June 2025, police forces dismantled a drug trafficking ring that used what authorities known as high-speed “narco boats” to smuggle giant portions of cocaine from Brazil and Colombia to the Canary Islands. The ring allegedly used an deserted shipwreck as a refueling platform for the speedboats.
