This is, according to police sources, the first time that this type of unmanned underwater vehicles have been intervened
The National Police has intervened several underwater drones used for drug trafficking in a pioneering operation in Campo de Gibraltar (Cádiz).
This is, according to police sources, the first time that this type of unmanned underwater vehicles have been intervened, the UUV (Unmanned Underwater Vehicle), known as underwater drones, with the capacity to hold between 150 and 200 kilos of cargo.
The Government delegate in Andalusia, Pedro Fernández and the sub-delegate in Cádiz, José Pacheco; as well as the superior chief of the National Police in Western Andalusia, Andrés Garrido; the provincial commissioner of Cádiz, Santos Bernal, together with operational managers, will give this Monday details of the operation at the Algeciras Police Station.
It is not, however, the first submarine device used for drug trafficking that is detected in the area, since in February of last 2021 a semi-submersible vessel used for this purpose was located.
It was in a warehouse in an industrial estate in Malaga where the National Police, in collaboration with Europol, he was investigating an international cocaine trafficking organization.
Was the first vessel with these characteristics located in Spain and was under construction when it was located. It had dimensions of nine meters long, three meters wide and three meters deep.
Its manufacture was handmade, using a keel on which a structure of frames and reinforcements with plywood panels has been mounted and fiberglass to provide the whole with the necessary structural strength.
had two engines of 200 hp each, controlled from an interior console where the steering wheel and the engine clutch and acceleration levers are located. Investigators estimate that it had the capacity to transport up to two tons of drugs.
In November 2019, a joint operation of Civil Guard, National Police and Customs Surveillance Service allowed another semi-submersible ship to be intercepted in Galicia, although in this case it came from Brazil, from where it crossed the Atlantic with 3,000 kilos of cocaine inside.