A diver removed a bundle of cocaine hidden under the waterline of a vessel intercepted in Puerto de la Luz in Las Palmas last January, according to a picture provided by the Guardia Civil.
Against the ingenuity of drug dealers and technology. The Civil Guard has acquired 10 underwater drones to improve their ability to intercept drug stashes the Mafia is trying to bring into Spain using what police jargon calls a “parasitic technique”. Metal cylinders containing bundles of drugs are attached with magnets or welded to the hull of boats below the waterline so they cannot be detected.
The Armed Institute deems it imperative to have these remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) after verifying that the systems previously used to detect these caches – “rods” that agents use to feel the boats’ keels – “proven to be present.” to be insufficient” and that support from divers from the Civil Guard’s Special Groups of Underwater Activities (GEAS) was insufficient, as set out in the tender documents for the purchase of the drones
Concealing drugs in the keels of boats has been used by drug traffickers for years. In September 2005, in the port of Carboneras (Almería), the Guardia Civil and Customs Surveillance Service intercepted a Cypriot-flagged vessel with two metal cylinders containing 270 kilos of cocaine attached to its hull, which was considered a novel method at the time. Since then, “parasitic” caches have been occurring again and again. Most recently, late last year, when the Civil Guard discovered two shipments of cocaine – one weighing 200 kilos and the other 32.5 kilos – hidden in the jets during two separate sorties in ports in the Canary Islands, the submerged areas of the hulls of two ships.
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In the document accompanying the competition, the Armed Institute details that organized crime uses two systems to implement underwater caches. One of these is precisely “the use of any device or accumulation of illegal cargo which can be attached by magnets to the hull or by attachments to the balance keel of any type of ship.” Another example is the so-called “torpedo”, in which a ship apparently legally active, drags a barrel full of drugs deep into the depths, eventually releasing them near shore. Then other members of the mafia can locate and recover it thanks to geolocation beacons. The security forces find it very difficult to detect these narco-torpedoes with current means.
For this reason, the Civil Guard believes that to “improve the efficiency and effectiveness in detecting these means of narcotic concealment, it is necessary to acquire submersible drones”, in which the Ministry of the Interior has invested 25,000 euros. Much of this was funded by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). The competition, in which only two companies took part, was won by Saborit Internacional SL, a Madrid-based company specializing in the sale of police and security equipment.
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Submerged cache of 1,500 kilos of hashish found by the Civil Guard in Almería on the 4th.
The 10 underwater drones, which must be operational before November, will be deployed by the Guardia Civil in the ports of Valencia, Barcelona, Bilbao, Malaga, Vigo, Algeciras, Puerto de la Luz (Las Palmas), Santa Cruz de Tenerife , Alicante and Santander. Two of them, Algeciras and Valencia, have for years been ranked by various international organizations among the top five places in Europe where cocaine is seized. The underwater vehicles purchased weigh less than five kilos and can be submerged to a depth of 100 meters. Equipped with a high-resolution camera and searchlights that allow inspection of hulls even in “low light conditions and complicated underwater environments”, they have a range of six hours and a top speed of four knots.
The Civil Guard’s purchase of submersible drones confirms that part of the fight against drug trafficking has long been taking place underwater. Since 2006, security forces have known of the existence of semi-submersibles carrying drugs across the Atlantic to Europe. Since then, four of these mills have been confiscated in Spain. Two of them – one in Galicia, precisely in 2006, and one in Malaga, in 2021 – had not yet been thrown into the sea when the police intervened. The other two have already been found sunk, both off the Galician coast. The first, in November 2019, kept a shipment of 3,000 kilos of cocaine when it was seized. The second, discovered last March, has already been found without a charge. Also in July last year, police arrested a father and son in Castellar de la Frontera (Cádiz) accused of building three submersible drones, each capable of transporting up to 200 kilos of drugs.
Submerged cache of 1,500 kilos of hashish found by the Civil Guard in Almería on the 4th.
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