The Civil Guard has intercepted a sailboat with 700 kilograms of cocaine that was just 500 miles northwest of the island of Gran Canaria. With this operation, an international criminal organization responsible for the introduction of large consignments of cocaine through the Canary Islands has been dismantled.
The investigation began in March 2022, when the Central Operating Unit (UCO) detected a Polish-flagged sailboat called 'Rossio' that would have established its temporary base on the island of Gran Canaria and about which, through exchanges of information with the police from Croatia, it was suspected that it could be used to transport cocaine from South America.
Thus they began to monitor the activities of the crew, two Italian citizens linked to the ´Ndrangheta and a Croat closely linked to the “Balkan Cartel”. During the following months, it was possible to verify how these people, without exercising any type of professional activity, were able to maintain a high standard of living, dedicating themselves exclusively to keeping the sailboat in optimal condition, making small sporadic outings, thus trying to demonstrate an apparent normality.
It was not until July 27, 2023 when an unusual voyage was detected in which the 'Rossio' sailboat, with the two Italian crew members on board, began sailing west, covering more than 750 nautical miles, on an itinerary around the Canary Islands that had its destination in an isolated point of the Atlantic Ocean and from which it began its return on August 2.
Three days later, on August 5, the sailboat was boarded approximately 500 miles northwest of the island of Gran Canaria and numerous packages were found inside that yielded a final weight of 700 kilograms of cocaine.
At the same time, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the Croat and a Serb citizen who allegedly were coordinating the operation from land and who, at the time of the arrest, were carrying the phones from which they would give instructions to the crew, were arrested.
This research corroborates the stability over time of the large European criminal organizations, which are capable of deploying their personnel in different locations for long periods of time, and the geostrategic importance of the Canary Islands in maritime drug trafficking.
