The Panamanian-flagged Mawashi Express, loaded with 16,000 cows, was intercepted by the National Police in Algeciras in an anti-drug operation, where it was searched for 5 tons of cocaine.
Investigators from the National Police Central Drug Brigade searched for 48 hours for five tons of cocaine on the Panamanian-flagged liner Mawashi Express, which left Cartagena, Colombia, on June 10, bound for Puerto Said, Egypt, with 16,000 cows on board. . The agents, in cooperation with the Colombian Navy and the GEO and as part of an anti-drug investigation against the so-called Gulf clan, intercepted the ship last Tuesday in the Alborán Sea off Almería. From there it was diverted to the port of San Roque (Cádiz), where it has been moored ever since, without agents having so far found a single gram of narcotics.
The ship, 195 meters long and 34 meters wide, with a crew of 77 – mostly Egyptians and Syrians and two Colombians – is the largest the national police have so far recorded in an anti-drug operation. with the myriad of complications that entails. “Time is limited, the crew is being detained but must continue to feed the livestock and the situation of the animals on the ship is not good,” sources from the inquiry say. Agents have 72 hours from their arrest to conduct the search. They can extend it if the judge approves, but with the caveat that the 16,000 cows still on board can remain. The operation is being directed by the National Court’s Central Court of Instruction Number 6, along with the Anti-Drug Prosecutor’s Office.
The “Mawashi Express” docked in San Roque.
If the cocaine is finally found – although investigators stress that “it’s almost like looking for a needle in a haystack against the clock” – it would confirm the suspicions of the Colombian authorities, who believe that it is is a loading method and drug unloading is on the rise, with livestock-loaded vessels later being transhipped with drugs at some point on the high seas, making them difficult to locate and making it difficult for the police to control them. The 77 crew members arrested will be released if the drugs don’t turn up.
This police operation goes far beyond the operation conducted in the Canary Islands last January, in which agents intercepted a ship, the Orion V, with 1,700 cows on board and found 4.5 tons of cocaine hidden in the shipping containers. Investigators suspect that it is the same Colombian organization that specializes in transporting the drug with this system. Also, on that occasion, some of the animals belonged to a company owned by the son-in-law of the current President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, according to police sources.
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