The Spanish Civil Guard, the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency on board the Special Operations vessel ‘Petrel I’ and the National Police have intercepted a sailboat loaded with nearly 500 kilos of cocaine in the waters of the North Atlantic and have arrested the three crew members of the vessel, of Brazilian and Moroccan nationalities.
The operation began within the framework of the bilateral operation between the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency and the French Customs (DNGCD), called ‘Pascal-Lino’, which is carried out every year in Atlantic waters and continued within the framework of another operation called ‘Azul’, led by the Polícia Judiciária of Portugal from the Maritime Analysis Centre against Drug Trafficking in the Atlantic (MAOC-N).
These two operations have coexisted sequentially to reinforce surveillance and action in the maritime area of Macaronesia, where Spanish and French customs maintained the availability of their resources for 25 days.
Once intelligence information was received regarding the suspicious sailboat in the first operational phase, the special operations vessel ‘Petrel I’ was redirected towards the target, which was located about 400 miles south of the Canary Islands.
The sailboat was intercepted by the ‘Petrel I’ after several days of tracking, along with the support of the French customs vessel ‘Jean Francois Deniau’, both in joint operational action of surveillance and control in the Macaronesia area (maritime strip that covers from the Azores islands to Cape Verde).
International cooperation enabled the acquisition of intelligence on Operation Blue, as well as from the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) and the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), channeled through the MAOC. Information related to this objective was also received from Frontex.
The information received was coordinated at the national level by the Intelligence Center on Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO), and was analyzed jointly by the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency, the National Police and the Civil Guard.
Adverse weather conditions
The maritime operation required a tactical assessment that allowed the action to minimize the risks in the boarding, an action that entails extreme danger for the officials of the Special Operations vessel ‘Petrel I’ of Customs Surveillance, in unstable sea and wind conditions that forced the reinforcement of the surveillance maintaining the discreet follow-up operation for several days after the detection of the vessel, until it was finally possible to intercept it.
The summer fogs typical of the area of operation, combined with unstable navigational conditions, prevented air support at the time of the boarding. The sea state also complicated the launching of the auxiliary vessels used in the boarding.
The three crew members of the sailboat, two of Brazilian nationality and one Moroccan, have been arrested.
The special operations vessel ‘Petrel I’, along with the three detainees and the seized drugs, have arrived at the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.