The Italian police have set up a sailing yacht in the Mediterranean with more than six tonnes of hashish on board. The reported by the Spanish authorities as suspicious boat was stopped about 160 kilometers south of Sicily, the financial police said on Saturday.
After escorting the twelve-meter-long yacht to the port of Pozzallo, the police found the drug. The three crew members - all Spaniards - were arrested.
The authorities in Spain, France, Italy and Greece have been alarmed for some time because of hashish smuggling from Morocco, it said. The Italian police spoke of a "new heavy blow to drug trafficking in the Strait of Sicily".