Guardia Civil divers locate €1.1m cocaine stash in ship’s hull in the Canary Islands

A massive €1.1m stash of cocaine was discovered in the submerged hull of a ship in the Las Palmas port of Luz in the Canary Islands.

As reported in a statement from the Guardia Civil, a spectacular joint action was carried out on Wednesday, January 4, in collaboration with the Tax Agency. It resulted in the seizure of 32.5 kilos of cocaine.

The huge stash was found concealed in 25 solid packages inside the submerged hull of a merchant ship that sailed from Brazil to the port of Luz in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.

This discovery came as a result of a recent increase in police surveillance and monitoring carried out on the ships that called at this particular port from so-called ‘hot routes’. The officers conducted a meticulous documentary analysis of each ship that arrived, among which was the one that contained the seized drugs.

To carry out a more exhaustive inspection of the ship – especially in the part of the hull that is submerged – the assistance of members of the Special Group for Underwater Activities (GEAS) was requested. Their highly skilled officers located the substance concealed cleverly in the aspiration systems inside the vessel’s hull

Once the packages were extracted from the water, the appropriate ‘narco test’ checks were carried out. A positive result for cocaine was returned. The stash weighed in at 32.5 kilograms and was valued at more than €1,144,000. This operation is the second intervention of this type in the last month.

Intervenidos 32 kilos y medio de cocaína en un barco en el puerto de la Luz de Las Palmas.

La droga se encontraba escondida en la parte sumergida de un buque mercante procedente de Brasil.https://t.co/BuICsPLlwk pic.twitter.com/ezbgfysv2M

— Guardia Civil (@guardiacivil) January 4, 2023