$105 million in cocaine seized from fishing boat off Spain

Police in Spain have detained a fishing boat loaded with nearly three metric tonnes of cocaine south of the Canary Islands. Authorities confirmed the police intercepted the 20-metre-long vessel called the AKT 1 on Wednesday around 555 kilometres south of the Spanish archipelago located in the Atlantic Ocean off west Africa.

Police arrested the five crew members — four Turkish citizens and one person from the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia — on the ship that was allegedly smuggling the drugs in a fuel tank.

The drugs with an estimated street value of $105 million were believed to come from an unspecified location in South America, police said. A Spanish air patrol spotted the suspicious ship while it was trying to hide among a fleet of fishing vessels.

Customs patrol officers then boarded the ship.Police said that they are focusing on cracking down on what they call the “African route” for South American traffickers who transfer loads of drugs to fishing vessels in the middle of the Atlantic before smuggling them into Europe.

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