A Japanese-controlled capesize bulker has been caught up in a major anti-drug smuggling operation in Gibraltar.
Reports say 108 kilos of cocaine, with a street value of over $8m, was recovered from the 176,900-dwt Mount Faber (built 2008).
The drugs were packed into a torpedo-shaped device attached to the bulker’s hull, according to a spokesman for the Royal Gibraltar Police.
Reports say the ship was intercepted on Monday in the Gibraltar Strait while en route from Columbia to Turkey.
“We can confirm that during the course of Tuesday afternoon a multi-agency, non-security related, operation was undertaken in the Bay of Gibraltar,” the Royal Gibraltar Police (RGP) said in a statement.
“At about 1900hrs yesterday RGP and HM Customs officers, with the assistance of Gibraltar Port Authority personnel, boarded a vessel of interest anchored in the Bay.”
The RGP said the operation was carried out based on “intelligence supplied by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) concerning this bulk carrier in particular that had left a port in Columbia”.
The RGP added that three members of the ship’s crew – the master, the chief engineer and crewmember – had been arrested and were “currently helping them with their enquiries”.
In January Colombian navy divers found cocaine inside a similar cylinder fixed to the hull of a reefer vessel bound for Europe.
Local media said 67kg of the drug worth more than $4m were seized after a check below the waterline on the 547,557-cbf Crown Opal (built 1997) in the Gulf of Uraba.
The ship, operated by Cool Carriers, had left Santa Marta on 26 January, bound for the Dominican Republic, the UK and Belgium.
The crew and vessel were cleared of any involvement.
