17 November 2024
Unreported World is in Spain tracking down the smuggling gangs using submarines to sneak vast quantities of cocaine into Europe, and following Spanish customs officials trying to find these near invisible targets. As cocaine production surges in Latin America, the authorities are increasingly on the lookout for small ‘narco-subs’ that spend weeks crossing the Atlantic from Latin America. Drug seizures across Spain are on the rise with more than 90 million tonnes seized last year. Most is found in shipping containers and ports. But in the coastal region of Galicia, in North-West-Spain, reporter Guillermo Galdos discovers a network of seasoned smugglers operating under the police’s radar. The existence of Narco-submarines was until recent years the stuff of myth. But from 2019 Spanish authorities have been discovering more and more home-made submarines, each capable of carrying tonnes of cocaine worth over £100m. Galdos embeds with Spanish customs as they patrol the coast, and discovers how local smugglers are using fast-boats to unload their cargo in the open ocean, and speed back to land before disappearing into coves and estuaries running along the shore. Much like the submarines, most smugglers operate silently and without trace. Galdos manages to access one smuggler who claims to come from a long line of local fishermen who built their network importing tobacco and hashish, and now work directly with Colombia’s cartels illegally importing cocaine. Once in Spain, he says its distributed around Europe to wherever there is demand. With thanks to: the Agencia Tributaria.
