Operation of the Tax Agency, National Police and Civil Guard

•  In parallel with the seizure of the sailboat and the drugs, extensive police deployment has been carried out in the Pontevedra area, with seven arrests and seven searches.
•  The five crew members of the sailboat, which left the Pontevedra coast in June to load cocaine to the west of the island of Cape Verde, have been arrested

 

July 30, 2020 .- Customs Surveillance of the Tax Agency, Civil Guard and National Police in Galicia, within the framework of the joint operation 'Bateas', have been carried out today extensive police deployment in the Pontevedra area with seven searches and the arrest of seven people that investigators link to the arrest, yesterday morning, Wednesday, July 29, of the Spanish-flagged sailboat 'Nergha', loaded with a significant quantity of cocaine, a thousand miles west of the Canary Islands and south of the Azores.

The sailboat, intercepted by officials from the three bodies aboard the Navy patrol boat 'Bam Rayo', along with the five detained crew members, travels under escort to the Canary Islands, where it is scheduled to arrive next week for review and confirmation of the weighing of the drug, which according to investigations would have the Galician coast as its intended destination.

The boarding of the sailboat arises from a joint investigation carried out by the Customs Surveillance Operational Unit of the Tax Agency in Coruña, Greco and UDYCO Galicia of the National Police, and ECO Galicia and EDOA Pontevedra of the Civil Guard. The investigation is being prosecuted in the Central Investigative Court number 4 of the National Court.

Previous research

Since December 2019, different units of the three bodies had been jointly carrying out an investigation into the illicit activities carried out by a criminal organization established in the Salnés region (Pontevedra).

The development of the process allowed investigators not only to know the criminal intentions of the members of the organization, but also to identify the means of transportation they intended to use to deliver a large consignment of cocaine to Spain.

Throughout the second quarter of the year, police work focused on control, both of the means of transport (subject to repair and transformation in different ports in the province of Pontevedra), and of the people who were going to be part of the crew, as well as those who, located at a higher level of the pyramid in which the investigated organization is made up, directed the strategy with the suppliers to load the narcotic.

Arrests on land and sea

The seized sailboat, registered in Vigo, left the port of Cobres (Pontevedra) on June 16, 2020, and after stops in Cascais (Portugal) and Cádiz, headed southwest, until reaching a position about 600 miles west of Cape Verde, coordinates where the drug shipment was received, which had departed from some point to be determined on the coast of South America. From that position, he began sailing north, to the point where he was finally apprehended.

On board the sailboat, the four crew members who left the province of Pontevedra in June (two Spaniards, a Portuguese and a Brazilian) have been arrested, plus a fifth crew member, also Spanish, whose means of arrest are unknown. get to the sailboat.

In parallel, and as a result of the investigation carried out on land, today an important operation was deployed in the province of Pontevedra, with seven arrests and seven entries and searches carried out, in which, among other effects, various documentation has been intervened. linked to the narcotic that the organization wanted to send to Spain.

Next arrival of the sailboat to Las Palmas

The sailboat, accompanied by the Navy's 'Bam Rayo', heads to the port of Las Palmas, where it is scheduled to enter next week to register the vessel and weigh the drugs.

The seized sailboat caught the attention of Galician investigators when, last December 2019, after erratic navigation near the Galician coast, it had to request support from Maritime Rescue to reach port. The reactivation of the route is confirmed maritime as one of those used for the attempted introduction of cocaine into Europe, as several police operations have revealed in recent months.