A major cocaine bust left Judicial Police officers with 2.5 tons of cocaine to look after. The shipment from Latin America is worth around €125 million and was seized at dawn on Wednesday with the support of the Air Force and the Portuguese Navy.
A Panama registered ocean going tug was seized the 11 people on board, all eastern European, were arrested and have been detained in Lisbon.
Some of those arrested are known to have criminal records for similar drug trafficking offences.
According to the director of the National Unit for Combating Drug Trafficking, Artur Vaz, the operation, "resulted from the exchange of information within the MAOC-N framework (Maritime Analysis and Operation Centre - Narcotics), a drug-trafficking agency based in Lisbon, and involved the cooperation of Portugal, Spain, France, UK, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands.
"Information was gathered that somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean a vessel had a high quantity of cocaine on board and as a result it was possible to locate it and intercept it with the support of the Navy and the Air Force," said Vaz at a press conference held at the Fisherman's Wharf in Setúbal.
According to Vaz, the high purity seized drug could yield around €50 a gram in southern European countries, but "in northern countries this could amount to around €200 a gram."
Lieutenant Colonel Manuel Costa of the Portuguese Air Force said that the suspected ship was detected three days ago, about 1,400 kilometres southwest of the Azores and that several Air Force crews had been involved in remote surveillance actions that allowed the collection of information without the traffickers realising that they were being observed.
According to Navy spokesman, Commander Fernando Fonseca, the suspected ship was approached at 5:00 am Wednesday, about 300 kilometres southwest of the island of São Vicente, Cape Verde.
Fernando Fonseca said that navy personnel used two semi-rigid vessels and boarded the vessel.
The 11 detainees are expected to up before the judge on Thursday to see if they will be bailed or detained until trial.
