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The Tax Agency intercepts a merchant ship with 12 tons of hashish south of Málaga

Joint operation with the French Customs

 

  • The eight crew members of the merchant ship arrested, all of them Syrian nationals
  • This is the sixth arrest made by Customs Surveillance on the eastern Mediterranean route since last June.

 

March 17, 2014.- The Tax Agency, through Customs Surveillance, intercepted a merchant ship with a flag of convenience that was transporting 12 tons of hashish in the Alboran Sea in the early hours of Sunday. , southeast of Malaga. Its eight crew members, all of Syrian nationality, have been arrested.

The operation, called “Oriente”, began when air-naval surveillance means from Customs Surveillance and French Customs detected a suspicious merchant ship that was making unusual movements in the Alboran Sea. The boat was suspicious due to the unusual area where it was located for a boat of those characteristics.

Once the appropriate air-naval device was established, the Customs Surveillance special operations patrol vessel 'Fulmar' headed to the area to intercept the ship. Once located, with authorization from the flag country, it was approached, discovering at a glance bales of those commonly used for the transportation of hashish that, in the absence of an official count, could contain close to 12,000 kilos.

The eight crew members were immediately arrested, as well as the ship and merchandise were seized for their subsequent transfer to the port of Malaga.

The detainees, the ship and the drugs have been handed over to the competent court.

 

Eastern Mediterranean route

With this operation there are now six, since last June, the seizures of large quantities of hashish carried out by Customs on the 'eastern Mediterranean route', with a balance of more than 75 tons of drugs seized. Fundamental to this has been the implementation of analysis and control devices on the Mediterranean trade route by the authorities of France, Italy and Spain, which have led to the interception of 11 ships carrying large loads of hashish.

This new operation confirms the importance of this new route opened for hashish trafficking. In the last twelve months, the authorities of Italy, France and Spain have seized the ships 'Adam', 'Gold Star', 'Luna-S', 'Moon Light', 'Avenir de Safi II', an unnamed Egyptian fishing vessel, 'Berk Kaptan', 'At the Will of God', two more fishing vessels in Italy and, recently, the merchant ship 'Mayak'.

Six of these operations have been carried out by Customs Surveillance. All of them transported quantities that reached up to 30 tons of hashish. In order to control this new hashish trafficking route, the Customs and Excise Department of the Tax Agency has established intensive and permanent surveillance over the area, evaluating the risk of maritime merchandise traffic and intensifying international collaboration.

As in its five previous actions, the arrest of the merchant 'Mayak' has been the result of this strategy. Drug trafficking organizations are agile and flexible, adapting quickly to new scenarios. Control of the eastern Mediterranean route and of this type of vessels is extremely complex. Researchers suspect that this route would be used by organizations located in North African countries. They would transport significant quantities of hashish on merchant or fishing vessels, commercial vessels that would carry out legal transport and, upon departure, with a brief technical stop, they receive significant quantities of hashish for transfer to the easternmost countries of the Mediterranean.

These boats can also be used as mother ships to transship the hashish to other smaller vessels, which would introduce them directly to the Community, Spanish, French or Italian coast.

 

Customs Supervision: Presentation of charges for smuggling and related offences 

Free telephone 900351378. Email: va.adu@aeat.es