The footage of the police operation looks like it came straight out of a Hollywood movie. Giant bags of cocaine lined up one after another for about 100 meters. The load constitutes a historic seizure: 30 tons of the white powder with an estimated street value of over 800 million euros.
The Argonian, a cargo ship flying the flag of the Comoros Islands, had departed Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, and was sailing towards Benghazi, Libya. But investigators believe the ship was planning to transfer the drugs to smaller vessels to facilitate distribution to Europe, because “unloading such a large volume of cocaine in Libya doesn’t make much sense.”
It was when the ship arrived in the Canary Islands on May 1 that Spanish authorities launched their operation. Several Guardia Civil ships rushed to it. A helicopter providing air support filmed the intervention.
Inside the ship, the drugs were not even hidden. Its interior was filled with a full 1,200 bags of cocaine. According to the Spanish Interior Minister, this was an unprecedented operation."This is the largest seizure of cocaine in the history of the fight against drug trafficking in a single operation.", declared Fernando Grande-Marlaska.
Several pistols and automatic rifles were found on board the ship. Upon their arrival in the Canary Islands, the 23 crew members – 17 Filipinos, 5 Dutch and 1 Surinamese – were all arrested.
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