Joint operation by the Tax Agency and the National Police

• 1,000 kilos of cocaine have been seized from a sailboat coming from the Caribbean, and three crew members and four members of the organisation have been arrested on land

• It comes under the latest phase of an operation that began a year ago and which had already resulted in the seizure of two pleasure boats, the seizure of 1,600 kilos of hashish and the arrest of ten members of the network.

• The criminal organisation, made up of skilled sailors, was led by an arrested former member of the British Royal Navy, and had strong links to drug receiving organisations in Europe.

• During the two phases of operation ‘Sueños-Candado’, 17 members of the organisation have been arrested. They had effective and strict security measures in their communications to make them difficult to detect.

June 23, 2021.- The Tax Agency, in a joint operation with the National Police, has intervened in a sailboat loaded with nearly 1,000 kilos of cocaine from the Caribbean, and has arrested the three members of its crew. At the same time as the boarding operation was being prepared, four arrests were made in the Cádiz area of Campo de Gibraltar and in the province of Málaga of people linked to the same criminal organisation dedicated to the international transport of cocaine and hashish, which the investigators consider to have been dismantled.

The boarding of the sailboat, named ‘Windwhisper’, was carried out by officers of the Customs Surveillance and agents of the Greco Costa del Sol Section of the National Police, on board the special operations vessel ‘Fulmar’ belonging to the Tax Agency.

This concludes more than a year of investigations which had already led to the seizure of two pleasure boats, the seizure of 1,600 kilos of hashish and the arrest of ten members of the network within the framework of the operation known as ‘Sueños-Candado’, carried out by officials of the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency in Malaga and National Police agents, with the collaboration of the British NCA and under the coordination of the Court of Instruction number 1 of San Roque (Cadiz) and the Special Anti-Drugs Prosecutor’s Office of Campo de Gibraltar.

Drug transport and international connections

The investigation focused from the beginning on a British citizen already arrested, a former member of the British Royal Navy with extensive nautical knowledge who resided in the Sotogrande residential complex (San Roque-Cádiz). This person, who was previously known to be closely involved in international drug trafficking, had strong links with other criminal organisations based in European countries such as the UK and Ukraine.

In addition to prior contact with potential recipients of drugs, this British citizen had several companies dedicated to the purchase, sale and rental of boats, with which he fraudulently orchestrated the acquisition of the means of transport for the drugs. He also facilitated the creation of front companies to launder money from drug trafficking into the legal economic circuit.

As a result of the investigation, it was determined that he would have been in a position to carry out different drug transports for various criminal organisations, always using pleasure boats and sailboats as the means of transport. At the same time, the suspect was also in contact with individuals based in Ceuta, members of an organisation supplying hashish.

Previous interventions

As a result of the control exercised over those under investigation, in August 2020, the criminal organisation prepared to carry out a drug transport on board a sailboat called ‘Suka’, which was seized in the marina of Ceuta when the organisation had already loaded almost 600 kilos of hashish.

In November, also last year, those investigated organised a new operation to transport narcotics. On this occasion they used the pleasure boat ‘Alauro’, which was seized in the marina of Sotogrande loaded with 1,000 kilos of hashish.

As a result of these seizures, last May it was agreed, together with the judicial authorities, for an exploitation phase to be carried out on the ‘branch’ of the criminal organisation dedicated to hashish trafficking and ten people were arrested, with entries and searches in the provinces of Cadiz, Malaga and the autonomous city of Ceuta.

The cocaine ‘branch’

At the same time, the investigation continued into a second organised ‘branch’, dedicated to international cocaine trafficking. This network was also known to be in a position to transport cocaine by sailboats from South America to Europe.

As a result of these investigations, at the beginning of June, the departure of the sailboat ‘Windwhisper’, which had set sail from the Caribbean Sea, heading towards the European continent, came to light. At that time, it was decided to setting up the appropriate operation that led to the boarding of the sailboat on 13 June, with the consequent detection of the drugs, the arrest of the crew members and their transfer to the port of Cadiz, where they arrived escorted by the vessel ‘Fulmar’ early this morning.

Four more individuals were also arrested in the Campo de Gibraltar and in the province of Malaga, involved in transporting the drugs —two of them are currently serving prison sentences— in addition to the ten arrested in May in Ceuta, Malaga and Cadiz.

Strict security measures

The investigation revealed from the outset the high degree of professionalism of the criminal organisation that has now been dismantled. A constant feature was the numerous and strict security measures adopted by its members, both in terms of their communications, as well as in terms of their movements and the choice of locations for meetings and personal gatherings, all of which made it very difficult to detect them.