In a significant drug seizure operation, British authorities have played a key role in capturing a submarine transporting 6.5 tonnes of cocaine to Europe in the Atlantic Ocean. The vessel, originating from Brazil, was apprehended by Portuguese police approximately 500 nautical miles south of the Azores islands. Following the interception, five crew members hailing from Brazil, Colombia, and Spain were arrested and taken to the Portuguese island of Sao Miguel. The submarine was found to be carrying cocaine valued at £530 million, with reports suggesting it was one of the largest semi-submersibles designed for smuggling narcotics from South America to Europe.
According to a statement by Spain’s Guardia Civil, the traffickers had intended to rendezvous with high-speed vessels near the coast to unload the drugs. This marks the first instance of a drug-running semi-submersible being intercepted in open waters, as per Spanish authorities who alerted their Portuguese counterparts. These vessels are challenging to detect and can be scuttled by the crew to evade capture, complicating the recovery of evidence.
The European cocaine market, second only to the US, has seen an increase in the use of homemade submarines for drug trafficking over the past two decades. Notably, in 2019, Spanish authorities intercepted a submarine carrying 3.3 tonnes of cocaine off the coast, marking the first such seizure of a “narco-submarine” in Europe. The recent operation, codenamed “Nautilus,” involved multiple agencies including the Portuguese air force, the UK’s National Crime Agency, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre in Lisbon.
LuÃs Neves, a senior Portuguese police official, hailed the operation as a significant blow to a major criminal organization.
