Sean Hocking
Reported in Maritime Government
Cocaine smuggling is a commonplace threat for vessels transiting from Colombia to Europe, however a current bust on the port of Gijon, Spain had an uncommon twist. The cocaine was within the possession of a stowaway, a 58-year-old Colombian nationwide who had boarded the ship throughout a earlier port name.
On Monday afternoon, the freighter Iraklis arrived in Gijon on a voyage from Barranquilla, Colombia, carrying a load of coke for a Spanish metal mill. Earlier than arrival, the captain contacted Spanish authorities to report that there was a stowaway aboard. Brokers with the Civil Guard, the Nationwide Police and the nationwide tax company (Tributaria) had been available on the pier to arrest the person and search the ship.
The stowaway had been hiding in a “coated construction” on board the ship, in line with La Nueva Espana. A search with canine turned up 200 kilos of cocaine on board, value no less than $6 million on the European market.
Cocaine instructions a excessive worth in Europe, and legal organizations primarily based in South America and southern Europe have give you numerous strategies for importing it into the continent. Customs authorities uncover greater than 100 tonnes of cocaine per yr in odd containers on the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp, the primary hubs for the drug’s arrival within the EU. Different identified strategies embrace narco-submarine transport; transshipment at sea off the Canary Islands; and the ploy of affixing packages on the hull’s exterior or inside an consumption grate.
The haul discovered aboard the Iraklis is the second current report of a drug-smuggling try accompanied by stowaways, although in a a lot totally different location. Final Tuesday, U.S. Customs and Border Safety and the U.S. Coast Guard detained 18 migrants who had stowed away aboard a container barge in an try and enter the port of San Juan, Puerto Rico. 16 had been rescued from the water, however the remaining two had been discovered aboard the barge, they usually had been in possession of 11 kilos of cocaine and a handgun.
https://maritime-executive.com/article/spanish-police-arrest-stowaway-with-200-kilos-of-cocaine
