Spanish police have carried out their largest-ever cocaine seizure at sea after intercepting a merchant vessel carrying almost 10 tonnes of the drug off the Canary Islands.
The operation followed an investigation into a multinational criminal network suspected of exporting large quantities of cocaine from South America to Europe. Detectives identified the ship after it departed from Brazil, according to a statement from the Policía Nacional.
Last week, officers from Spain’s elite special operations unit boarded the vessel while it was 332 miles (535km) off the Canary Islands. Almost 300 bales of cocaine were discovered concealed within a cargo of salt.
A total of 13 people were arrested during the operation. The ship, which had run out of fuel, was later towed to the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Footage released by police shows officers using shovels to dig through tonnes of salt in the ship’s hold to recover the wrapped packages of cocaine.
The operation, codenamed White Tide, was conducted in cooperation with Brazil’s federal police, the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the UK’s National Crime Agency, and law enforcement agencies in France and Portugal.
Police said officers recovered 9,994kg of cocaine packed into 294 bundles, along with a firearm believed to have been used to protect the shipment.
The Policía Nacional described the seizure as a significant blow to international drug trafficking networks and highlighted the role of cross-border police cooperation in tackling maritime smuggling.
The previous record for the largest cocaine seizure at sea by Spanish police was 7.5 tonnes, recovered from a trawler in July 1999.
In a separate case in 2024, Spanish police and customs officers intercepted more than 13 tonnes of cocaine hidden in a shipment of bananas from Ecuador, the largest known consignment of the drug to reach the country.
Spanish authorities seized a total of 123 tonnes of cocaine in 2024, up from 118 tonnes in 2023 and 58 tonnes in 2022.
