A gang of Colombian drug traffickers sank their submarine off the coast of Spain after they were spotted by customs officers, police said on Tuesday.
Spain is one of the main entry points for drugs into Europe, due to its close links with Latin America and its proximity to Morocco.
On Sunday, customs officers spotted a vessel 500 kilometres off the coast of Cádiz (Andalusia). It was a 20-metre semi-submersible – a type of boat increasingly used by traffickers who are redoubling their creativity to find new ways of concealing drug shipments.
When customs officers approached, the crew ‘opened the valves on the bottom of the submarine, before surfacing to safety’, the statement said.
It added: ‘The semi-submersible was flooded within minutes, before sinking with its cargo to the bottom of the sea.’
The four Colombian crew members were rescued and then arrested.
In a parallel operation, police said that 900 kilos of cocaine was also seized from 200 miles from the Canary Islands, with the international collaboration of the British and US authorities.
#OperacionesGC | Interceptado en el Atlántico un semisumergible que se dirigía hacia la costa peninsular. Detenidos los cuatro tripulantes, rescatados después de que hundieran el artefacto a 280 millas al oeste de la costa de Cádiz. En una operación paralela se han intervenido… pic.twitter.com/bfQWnqb4B4
— Guardia Civil (@guardiacivil) June 26, 2024
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