Civil Guard police in northwest Spain this week refloated a home-made semi-submersible vessel – a so-called “narcosub” they suspect could be used to transport cocaine. The news came just a few days later Submarine with two dead bodies And nearly three tons of cocaine aboard the ship were seized off the coast of Colombia.
The 52-foot fiberglass vessel was discovered Monday sunk in the Arusha Estuary in the northwest about half a mile off the coast. The bow was spotted by fishermen who noticed a small oil spill, Reuters reported.
A Civil Guard video showed divers inspecting the ship and measuring it underwater, and another video showed officials operating a tow boat with a crane as the bow of the submarine was stuck.
Specialists from the @GuardiaVille Special Groups for Underwater Activities Activities (#GEAS) continue the inspection and refloating work of the submersibles that surfaced off the coast of Villagarcia de Arosa (Pontevedra). pic.twitter.com/TWwCVo0S35
— Guardia Civil 🇪🇸 (@guardiacivil) March 14, 2023
It was taken to a nearby port where police said they would investigate it fully, but the representative of the national government in the local Galicia region, Jose Miones, told reporters that preliminary checks showed there were no drugs on board.
He said the police had been alerted to possible drug shipments arriving in Galicia.
Police said it was too early to say if the vessel was used to transport cocaine or where it came from. Earlier this month, the Civil Guard intercepted two sailboats carrying more than 1,100 kilos of cocaine in Canary Islands waters.
In 2019, a similar vessel was found in another northern Spanish estuary with three metric tons of cocaine. In 2021, Spanish police found a homemade narco-semisubmersible capable of carrying up to two metric tons of cargo while being built in Malaga, on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain.
Similar drug-smuggling craft have been discovered in the Atlantic Ocean, particularly in Central and South America. They are not very common in Europe. Ships lie low in the water to avoid detection and are rarely able to fully submerge.
Submarines sometimes make it as far as North America. inside 2019A submarine carrying 12,000 pounds of cocaine worth more than $165 million has been seized by the US Coast Guard.
Spanish Civil Guard
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