Spanish authorities have intercepted almost 10 tonnes of cocaine hidden aboard a merchant vessel off the Canary Islands in what police say is the country’s largest-ever drug seizure at sea.
The bust, worth more than €100m ($116.5m), followed the boarding last week of an unnamed Cameroon-flagged dry bulkship some 332 miles west of the Canaries. Acting on intelligence linked to a multinational criminal network exporting “enormous quantities” of cocaine from South America to Europe, officers from Spain’s elite GEO unit stormed the vessel as it crossed the Atlantic from Brazil.
Police discovered 9,994 kg of cocaine packed into 294 bales, concealed beneath tonnes of salt cargo. Video footage released by the Policía Nacional shows officers shovelling through the salt in the ship’s holds to uncover the wrapped packages. A firearm used to protect the shipment was also recovered, and 13 crewmembers were arrested.
The operation, dubbed White Tide, was carried out in close cooperation with Brazilian federal police, the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the UK’s National Crime Agency, and French and Portuguese authorities. After the raid, the ship ran out of fuel and drifted for around 12 hours before Spain’s maritime rescue service, SASEMAR, towed it into Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Spanish police said the seizure “represents a decisive blow to international criminal networks involved in maritime cocaine trafficking,” highlighting the growing sophistication of smugglers using bulk cargoes to mask illicit drugs on long-haul voyages.
The haul surpasses Spain’s previous maritime record of 7.5 tonnes seized from a trawler in 1999. More broadly, it underlines Spain’s role as a key entry point for cocaine into Europe. Authorities seized 123 tonnes of cocaine nationwide in 2024, up from 118 tonnes in 2023 and just 58 tonnes in 2022, with traffickers increasingly exploiting commercial shipping routes to move drugs across the Atlantic.
