In a landmark operation that marks a massive blow to international drug trafficking networks, Spain’s Civil Guard has intercepted a cargo freighter in international waters off the Canary Islands and seized what officials confirm is the largest cocaine haul in the country’s modern history.
According to announcements from the AUGC, the main union representing Civil Guard personnel, the intercepted shipment contained between 30,000 and 45,000 kilograms, or 33 to 50 metric tonnes, of cocaine. Around 20 crew members and suspected traffickers were taken into custody following the Friday interception, the union confirmed to AFP. The vessel had departed Sierra Leone and was en route to Libya when it was stopped.
Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska emphasized the scale of the operation during a press briefing in Madrid, noting that the seizure ranks among the largest not just in Spain, but across the entire world. Law enforcement has not released further details on the ongoing investigation to preserve investigative integrity, as required by Spanish legal procedure.
The Civil Guard shared visual evidence of the seizure on social platform X, showing large quantities of cocaine packed into the freighter’s cargo hold. In its post, the agency wrote, “Today history is being written in the Maritime Service of the Civil Guard. Intercepted in international waters the largest known seizure: between 30,000 and 45,000 kg of cocaine on board a freighter.”
Though the ship’s stated final destination was Libya, industry observers and law enforcement patterns point to a planned diversion for European distribution. Per AFP reporting, it is standard for trafficking networks to use large bulk cargo vessels to move drug shipments across the Atlantic, before transferring cargo to smaller speedboats that offload the contraband into European ports across the Iberian Peninsula and beyond.
Prior to this operation, Spain’s largest at-sea cocaine seizure stood at just under 10 tonnes, a haul intercepted back in January 2024. This new record is more than three times the size of that previous capture, underscoring both the scale of drug trafficking activity across the Atlantic and the expanding reach of Spanish law enforcement counter-narcotics operations.