A “monkey” drug ring used young swimmers to hide cocaine on ships at sea, Spanish police said.
Spanish police on Thursday said they had busted a network that saw smugglers swim across the seas to help hide Colombian cocaine on container ships bound for Europe and hijack ships. This incident was revealed three days later in Spain announced its largest seizure of cocaine at sea.
The network uses the so-called “monkey” method, which uses “young people who can swim and come from low-income families to load the drug onto ships at sea,” a police statement said.
Some members of the group went to Spain “to raid the containers by blocking the ships before they reach the Strait of Gibraltar,” the busy and narrow body of water that separates Europe from North Africa.
Last year, the crew of a ship bound for the southern port of Spain, Cadiz, reported that 1.3 tons of cocaine were on board, police said.
Soon after, another ship passing through Portuguese waters raised the alarm about a “hijacking” by armed robbers who unloaded cocaine hidden on board.
The investigation found that the network allegedly recovered the drug by tossing it overboard from merchant ships to small, fast boats near Europe, “overpowering the ship’s crew and extracting the drug from containers using military techniques and weapons.”
The cocaine was then stored in southern Spain before being transported by road to other European countries.
Authorities arrested 30 people and seized 2.4 tons (5,291 kilograms) of cocaine, military weapons, ladders used to attack ships, luxury cars and cash.
The police released a video of the campaign on social media, showing the police uncovering packets of suspected drugs and money. The social media also posted photos and images of one of the cargo ships suspected to be carrying the drugs.
Spain’s close ties with Latin America and its proximity to Morocco, a top producer of marijuana, make it a key entry point for drugs in Europe.
On Monday, Spanish police announced that they had seized the largest amount of cocaine ever found at sea after arresting a Europe-bound container ship in the Atlantic Ocean carrying nearly ten tons of the drug.
Last October, Spanish police seized 6.5 tons of cocaine and arrested nine people afterward US advice he led them to attack a ship from the Canary Islands.
In June 2025, police dismantled what authorities called a drug trafficking ring high speed “narco boats”. smuggling large quantities of cocaine from Brazil and Colombia to the Canary Islands. The ring is called he used an abandoned shipwreck as a refueling platform for speedboats.
