The Fulmar uses the period of the largest cocaine shipments to Europe to make it clear why it is nicknamed “Terror of the drug dealers”. In two high-risk operations, the customs surveillance special ship launched two boardings in the middle of the storm, allowing the seizure of seven tons of cocaine near the Canary Islands. The last hit was known this Tuesday, that of the Mambo sailing boat that transported 2,500 kilos of cocaine straight from the Caribbean, but really the penultimate was that of the Blume freighter, where the agents seized 4,500 kilos of the same drug. To intercept her, the Fulmar had to sail “west, between storms”, so National Police and Customs Enforcement agents risked approaching separately “in strong winds and waves”.
The customs surveillance ships that depend on the tax authority are predators. The already veteran Petrel I, a ship manufactured in 1993 as an oceanographic ship, was emulated by its cousin, the Fulmar ship (both named after seabirds of the same family), a 61-meter-tall and 17-year-old patrol vessel that over has a helipad and two support boats for boarding and interception.
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The police informed this Tuesday of the latest hunt for the Fulmar, which on December 5, after a week of navigation “west between storms” caught the sailboat Mambo “in an area of low pressure, with significant winds and waves that made the attack and boarding considerably more difficult,” police and customs assure in a joint statement. The Mambo carried the drugs in bundles, stacked in plain sight on the deck. Four men and one woman were arrested.
The statement gives an idea of what the customs surveillance special operation ship did over the last month, until finally boarding the Togolese-flagged cargo ship Blume on January 18, which appeared to be carrying 200 tons of coffee. , instead of the 10,000 pounds of cocaine he was actually carrying. It was also a dangerous attack because of the freighter’s high rails, its large dimensions and the poor state of the sea… and because it was carried out at dawn.
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The Fulmar left Cádiz on November 28 to sail west. He was clearly on his way to the Canary Islands because the following Thursday he boarded the sailboat from the Caribbean that was carrying nearly 5,000 pounds of cocaine. It then stayed near the Canary Islands, where it may continue given the intensity of the cocaine season, bad weather window and rough seas used by drug traffickers to bring cocaine to Europe. Since its launch in 2006, more than 20 tons have been withdrawn from the market.
In addition to the seven tons of these operations, the Angolan-flagged fishing vessel Simione approached the Canary Islands on December 18 with 3.3 tons of high-purity cocaine, confirming the validity of the African drug route. At the end of November, another 5.5 tons were already caught in the port of Valencia.