Spain working to refloat submarine thought to hold cocaine

MADRID — Spanish police were studying Monday how to refloat a submarine believed to be carrying tons of cocaine, which if confirmed would make it the first time such a vessel has been found to be used in drug trafficking in the country.

The submarine was intercepted Sunday in an inlet in the northwestern Spanish region of Galicia, according to an official from the government’s office in the province of Pontevedra.

Galician inlets have long been used by smugglers bringing cocaine by sea from South America into Europe.

A major gang is suspected of being behind the first “narco-submarine” ever caught in European waters. The vessel, seized in Spain’s northwestern Galicia region, was carrying more than 3,000kg of high-quality cocaine and is thought to have cost €2.5m https://t.co/aVFwA3pR8D

— El País in English (@elpaisinenglish) November 25, 2019

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with government rules, said a police diver had managed to enter the submarine and extracted one package of cocaine.

Media reports said the vessel — believed to be some 65 feet long — could be carrying three metric tons but the official said this could not be confirmed.

He said two Ecuadorian crew members were arrested on land Sunday when police moved to seize the submarine while a third managed to flee.

He said it was not clear if the vessel had been purposely sunk by the crew or had suffered some mechanical problem.

The official said the submarine was about six meters under water and that bad weather was complicating how police might be able to bring it to the surface.

He said Spanish police, in coordination with other countries’ forces, had been monitoring the submarine’s journey for some days.

Portuguese police confirmed the submarine passed by Portugal and that detectives and the Portuguese Navy were involved in a joint operation with Spanish authorities to track it.

Under the sea and under the radar: Smugglers are reported to have used a submarine in a bid to bring around three tonnes of cocaine into Spain | https://t.co/azTV5CV2sV pic.twitter.com/2g1KNDrwkQ

— RTÉ News (@rtenews) November 25, 2019

However, a police spokesperson said Portuguese authorities were not immediately making public any details of the operation. The spokesperson spoke on condition of anonymity, in accordance with police rules.

The Spanish official could not say from which country the submarine had come but media reports said it was suspected to have set off from Colombia.

Besides Galicia’s inlets, gangs often use Spain’s southwestern port of Algeciras to smuggle cocaine into Spain. In April 2018, police found nearly 9 tons of cocaine concealed in a banana shipment from Colombia in the port. Two months earlier, authorities seized six tons of cocaine there.