The ship was already targeted by the authorities.

Spanish police announced on Saturday the seizure of 4.5 tons of cocaine off the Canary Islands aboard a Togolese cargo ship which came from Latin America.

The

Orión V

, which carried cattle to countries in the Middle East, had been closely watched for more than two years.

It had already been "checked and searched, but no drugs could be found inside, despite the presence of sufficient clues", explains the police.

An “air and naval” device finally made it possible on January 24 to get their hands on the cocaine, hidden in a silo supposed to be used to feed the cattle, she adds.


🚩Intervenido en Canarias un carguero con 4.500 kilos de cocaína procedente de #Colombia



🚩Operation together with the Tributaria



Agency 🚩 El 'Orión V' ha sido interceptado por parte del buque 'Fulmar' de Vigilancia Aduanera



🚩Detenidos los 28 tripulantes del carguero pic. twitter.com/C5iTTlCNyN

— National Police (@policia) January 28, 2023

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Another vessel intercepted mid-January

The operation, which mobilized among others the American anti-drug agency DEA, the international operational center for the analysis of maritime intelligence for narcotics (MAOC-N), the Togolese authorities and the Spanish police, made it possible to arrest the 28 crew members, of nine different nationalities.

The

Orión V

had the same dimensions as another Togolese freighter intercepted in mid-January in the same area, the

Blume

, on which the same quantity of cocaine had been found.

A total of nine tons of drugs were therefore seized this month.

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