The Tax Agency intercepts an Egyptian fishing boat with 13 tons of hashish south of Almería

Operation ‘Otero’

• The eight crew members of the fishing boat, all of them Egyptian nationals, were arrested and 450 bales of hashish resin hidden in the hold of the ship were seized.
• The detainees used a new drug trafficking route, the eastern Mediterranean route

March 8, 2014.- The Tax Agency intercepted a fishing boat transporting 13 tons of hashish on the night of March 6, about 60 miles southeast of Cabo de Gata (Almería). The eight crew members, all of Egyptian nationality, have been arrested.

The operation, called 'Otero', began when aerial means of Customs Surveillance from the French Tax and Customs Agency detected a suspicious fishing vessel on the afternoon of March 6, which was not flying a flag, but with lettering in Arabic characters on its bow. , about 25-30 nautical miles south of Almería. 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 patrol boat 'Alca', based in Almería, headed to the area to intercept the ship. Once located, he boarded the fishing boat. When checking the ship, Customs Surveillance officials discovered 450 bales of hashish in the hold that, in the absence of official weighing, could contain nearly 13,000 kilos.

The eight crew members were immediately arrested, as well as the fishing vessel was seized and subsequently transferred to the port of Almería.

The detainees, the ship and the drugs have been placed at the disposal of the investigative court acting as guard in Almería.

Eastern Mediterranean route open

With this operation, since last June, there have been five seizures of large quantities of hashish carried out by the Tax Agency on the 'eastern Mediterranean route', with a balance of more than 60 tons of drugs seized. In the last half year, the control devices established on the Mediterranean trade route by the authorities of France, Italy and Spain have led to the interception of eight ships carrying a significant cargo of hashish.

This new operation confirms the importance of this new route opened for hashish trafficking. In the last twelve months, Italy, France and Spain have seized the ships 'Adam', 'Gold Star', 'Luna-S', 'Moon Light', 'Avenir de Safi II', an unnamed Egyptian fishing vessel and, recently, the “Berk Kaptan” fishing vessel. These last four operations have been carried out by Customs Surveillance of the Tax Agency. All these vessels were transporting up to 30 tonnes 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, analyzing targets with a similar pattern.

As in its last four actions, the arrest of the flagless fishing vessel has been the result of this strategy. Drug trafficking organizations adapt quickly to new scenarios, being very agile to assume any change in strategy. Control of the eastern Mediterranean route and of this type of vessels is 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 ships can also be used as mother ships to transship the hashish to other smaller vessels, which would introduce them directly to the Spanish or Italian coasts.