The Port of La Luz and Las Palmas becomes the most monitored security bunker in Spain starting this Monday. The Civil Guard has escorted the merchant vessel Arconian to the Gran Canaria dock, a 90-meter long ship intercepted in waters near Dakhla with a cargo that shatters all previous records. The first official estimates place the stash between 30 and 45 tons of cocaine, a figure that would make this intervention the largest drug seizure made at sea in the country’s history.
The operation, executed by specialized units of the Civil Guard with the support of the oceanic vessel Duque de Ahumada and the patrol boat Río Guadiato, culminated with the boarding of the freighter last Friday. In the ship’s holds, which was sailing under the Comoros flag after departing from Sierra Leone bound for Libya, approximately 1,500 bales weighing about 30 kilos each have been located. The operation resulted in the detention of all 23 crew members of the merchant ship, of Filipino and Angolan nationalities, who have already been placed at the disposal of the judicial authorities.
This massive seizure underscores the consolidation of the African route as the main strategic corridor for international mafias operating between Latin America and Europe. The arrival of the Arconian in Gran Canaria is not a coincidence; the port functions as the logistical epicenter necessary for carrying out an official weighing of such magnitude, a process that continues under strict surveillance measures due to the astronomical value of the intervened merchandise.
The blow dealt by the Central Operational Unit (UCO) and the units from the Las Palmas command marks a turning point in the fight against drug trafficking in the Atlantic. While agents secure the cargo, the official weighing will determine if the ‘Arconian’ ranks as the largest mother ship intercepted to date, confirming that criminal pressure on the Canary Islands coasts has reached an unprecedented industrial scale.
