THE GUARDIAN: Haul represents country’s largest seizure at sea, with officers digging bales out from vast amount of salt
Spanish police have made their largest seizure of cocaine at sea after finding almost 10 tonnes of the drug hidden among a cargo of salt on a merchant ship off the Canary Islands.
Detectives and anti-drug prosecutors investigating a multinational criminal group alleged to be exporting “enormous quantities” of cocaine from South America to Europe had identified a suspect ship that had set off from Brazil, the Policía Nacional said in a statement on Monday.
Last week, officers from the force’s elite special group of operations boarded the vessel as it lay 332 miles (535km) off the Canary Islands, and seized almost 300 bales of cocaine that had been buried in a shipment of salt. Thirteen people were arrested and the ship, which had run out of fuel, was towed to port in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. » | Sam Jones in Madrid | Monday, January 12, 2026
