Story By:  Ana Marjanovic, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency:  Newsflash

Police have busted a gang that had been using jet skis to smuggle cannabis into Spain at high speed.

The cops said that they arrested 20 people and seized four tonnes of cannabis in hashish form.

The gang had been using the jet skis, as can be seen in this footage, to zoom into land and drop the drugs off before making a quick getaway, according to police.

Other footage shows a police raid on the gang who are suspected of having smuggled drugs from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa to the south-western Spanish port city of Cadiz.

The police said in a statement obtained by Newsflash on Sunday, 26th June, that they had dismantled the organisation that had been using jet skis to smuggle hashish into Spain and arrested 20 people.

The police said that they seized several vehicles, money and drugs during the raid and made several arrests.

The police statement said: “The organisation used both marinas and the beaches of the Costa del Sol and Campo de Gibraltar to carry out the shipments using recreational boats and jet skis.”

The police added: “In total, 51 people have been investigated, of whom 20 have been arrested and more than four tonnes of hashish, 122 grams of cocaine, five recreational boats, four jet skis and five vehicles have been seized.”

The police said that they began investigating in September 2021 after they discovered that an organisation was working to smuggle hashish into Spain from North Africa.

They said: “Most of its members lived in Ceuta, had the collaboration of other residents of Algeciras and had a high standard of living that did not correspond to their income.”

The cops explained: “The criminal organisation used two methods to carry out its drops: ‘anchoring’ and through recreational boats. The first method involves a boat departing from the coast of Morocco with the narcotic substances, which is dropped at previously stipulated coordinates with a person then tasked with securing the drugs.”

“At that point, the crew members throw the bundles of hashish attached to a weight, locating the place with a marine buoy and, later, a boat used by the organisation sails to the agreed point and secures the drugs.

“The other method used by the organisation consisted of using recreational boats, which, given their appearance of legality, sail between the marinas of Ceuta and the Campo de Gibraltar. This is how they took advantage of the volume of vessels that transit daily between these ports to hide.”

The police said that sometimes the boats would land the drugs directly on beaches, while other times they would transfer them to other vessels or to jet skis.

The police explained: “Once the shipment or transhipment was done, the boat returned to the port, taking advantage of the influx of this type of boat to mingle with each other and thus elude police control.”

The police added: “Recreational boats have powerful engines from 150 hp to 300 hp, and being short in length, they are powerful enough to transport a considerable amount of drugs. The use of jet skis makes it extremely difficult to follow as they have great manoeuvrability in the water.”

The cops said that they had searched 11 homes and farms in the towns of Algeciras and Los Barrios, in the province of Cadiz, and in the Autonomous City of Ceuta, in North Africa.

The police investigation is ongoing. It is currently unclear if any of the suspects have been formally charged.