Spanish police seize cocaine value $114 million from cattle ship

By Borja Suarez

MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish police seized 4.5 tonnes of cocaine with an estimated avenue worth of 105 million euros ($114 million) after raiding a cattle ship off the Canary Islands earlier this week, an announcement stated on Saturday.

The ship had stopped at ports in a few dozen international locations earlier than Tuesday’s raid, and police stated drug smugglers had began utilizing livestock ships as a result of it was harder for police to hint their illicit cargo.

“Worldwide organisations are reinventing themselves to move medication from Latin America to Europe, utilizing livestock to make the management and localisation harder,” the Spanish police assertion stated.

Police arrested 28 crew members on the Togo-flagged Orion V, which had been trailed from Colombia in an operation by Spanish authorities, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Togo police.

Officers unloaded dozens of packing containers containing the cocaine on the port facet in Las Palmas on the island of Gran Canaria.

($1 = 0.9202 euros)

(Further reporting by Graham Keeley and Miguel Gutierrez; Enhancing by Helen Popper)