Spanish police have seized almost 10 tonnes of cocaine hidden inside a cargo of salt on a merchant vessel intercepted off the Canary Islands, marking the largest cocaine haul ever recovered at sea by the country's authorities.
The ship, which had departed from Brazil, was identified as part of an investigation into a multinational criminal network suspected of shipping vast quantities of cocaine from South America to Europe. Officers from Spain's elite special operations unit boarded the vessel around 330 miles from the Canary Islands and uncovered nearly 300 tightly wrapped bales concealed deep within the salt cargo.
Thirteen people were arrested during the operation, and the fuel-depleted ship was later towed to the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Video released by police shows officers digging through mountains of salt with shovels to extract the drug packages.
The operation, dubbed "White Tide," was carried out with support from Brazilian federal police, the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the UK's National Crime Agency, and French and Portuguese authorities, underscoring the scale of international cooperation behind the bust.
Police said the seizure, totaling 9,994 kilograms of cocaine and including a firearm used to guard the shipment, dealt a significant blow to global maritime drug trafficking networks, surpassing Spain's previous at-sea record set more than two decades ago.