• The vessel had reported the existence of a package containing a suspicious substance detected during the ballasting operations it was carrying out.

December 16, 2024.- Officials of the Customs Surveillance Service of the Special Delegation of the Tax Agency in Asturias, have seized 2.7 kilos of cocaine during the inspection of a ship, named "World Prize" and flying the Isle of Man flag, when it was in an operation to unload iron ore in the customs area of the port of Gijón-El Musel from Liberia and bound for Lisbon.

At approximately 00:45 hours on 15 December, the port police of the port of Gijón transferred the content of information received at its operational terminal from an unidentified person, indicating that the ship "World Prize" had cocaine ready to be extracted that same night by the receiving organisation, which had the necessary aquatic means to do so.

An operational group from the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency carried out an inspection of the ship, which initially did not yield positive results.

At the end of that inspection, and after two hours, a call was received from the captain of the ship reporting that, in the course of ballasting operations they were carrying out, they had found a package containing a suspicious substance.

The new incident prompted the reactivation of the operation on the ship, proceeding first to identify the package, which turned out to be cocaine, and then to inspect all the ballast filters in search of new substances that could be lodged inside. Two other packages were also found that reacted positively to cocaine after the application of the "narcotest" reagent.

The total amount seized amounts to approximately 2.7 kilos.