Police in Spain have detained a fishing boat loaded with practically three metric tonnes of cocaine south of the Canary Islands.
Authorities confirmed the police intercepted the 20-metre-long vessel referred to as the AKT 1 on Wednesday round 555 kilometres south of the Spanish archipelago situated within the Atlantic Ocean off west Africa.
Police arrested the 5 crew members — 4 Turkish residents and one particular person from the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia — on the ship that was allegedly smuggling the medication in a gasoline tank.
The medication with an estimated avenue worth of $105 million had been believed to return from an unspecified location in South America, police mentioned.
A Spanish air patrol noticed the suspicious ship whereas it was making an attempt to cover amongst a fleet of fishing vessels. Customs patrol officers then boarded the ship.
Police mentioned that they're specializing in cracking down on what they name the "African route" for South American traffickers who switch a great deal of medication to fishing vessels in the course of the Atlantic earlier than smuggling them into Europe.
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