Operation ‘Mar’

 

• The seized drug is worth more than 12.5 million euros
• The four crew members of the yacht from Spain (two), Bolivia and Morocco, were arrested.

 

March 21, 2016.- The Tax Agency intercepted at 1:30 p.m. yesterday, 93 miles southeast of Cartagena, an extra sloop-type sailboat 15 meters long and flying a Spanish flag, named 'Diosa Astarte', when she was transporting 320 bales of hashish resin. After it was weighed, 7,980 kilos of hashish was confirmed, which is a clearly unusual quantity for this type of vessel. The black market value of the seized drugs amounts to twelve-and-a-half-million euros.

The operation, named ‘Mar', began when Customs Surveillance air patrols of the Tax Agency detected the yacht 'Diosa Astarte' sailing without a defined course in an area regularly used to carry these narcotics. After the sailboat was sighted, it was monitored by the Agency's Land Services in Andalusia and Murcia, under the coordination of the Customs Surveillance Sub-department. The monitoring and control culminated in the boarding by the crew of the patrol ship ‘Colimbo IV’ from the Maritime Customs Surveillance Cartagena base.

When the civil servants accessed the cover of the sailboat they found a large quantity of bails usually used to transport hashish and jerry cans. For this reason the four crew members were immediately arrested and the yacht, the persons under arrest and the seized drugs were transferred to Cartagena.

The detainees, two of Spain Spanish nationality, one Bolivian and another Moroccan, the yacht and the drugs were handed over to Trial Court no.2 of the Spanish High Court.

Open route

This new operation ratifies the importance of the Eastern Mediterranean Route on which, during the last three years, Italy, France and Spain have seized the vessels ‘Adam’, ‘Gold Star’, ‘Luna-S’, ‘Moon Light’, ‘Avenir de Safi II’, a nameless Egyptian fishing vessel, the “Berk Kaptan”, “Al Amir Khaled”, “Abou de Sherief”, “La Misericordia de Dios”, “Mayak”, “Assel”, “Aberdeen”, “Just Noran”, “Zakmar”, “Eiskos” and “Rinad”, “Santa Rita Terza”, “Green Cedar”, “Mehtap”, “San Trela”, “Meryem”, "Just Reema”, "el Mirca" and the aforementioned “Diosa Astarte” (operations, of which fifteen were carried out by Customs Surveillance of the Tax Agency). All these vessels were transporting up to 30 tonnes of hashish.
 
Investigators suspect that the Eastern Mediterranean route is being used by organizations located in northern African countries, which are transporting large amounts of hashish in trade or fishing vessels, and storing it in these countries.

Using these vessels, the drugs would be subsequently redistributed to Europe, and they may also be used as mother ships to transfer the hashish to other smaller vessels, in order to introduce it directly onto the Spanish or Italian coast.

 

Customs Supervision: Filing complaints for smuggling and related crimes
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