Suspected

A suspected “narco-sub” capable of smuggling drugs broke in two as a fishing boat was towing it to a port in northwestern Spain this week, police said.

The “Maria Cristina” fishing boat spotted the “semi-submerged” vessel on Wednesday at the entrance to the Camarinas-Muxia estuary in the Galicia region and proceeded to tow it to the port of Camarinas after notifying police, the Civil Guard said in a statement.

During the operation “the presumed narco-submarine broke into two sections: the bow, which remains afloat, and the stern, which sank due to its greater weight,” the statement added.

Police divers were searching for the sunken parts of the vessel for analysis. It was not immediately clear if there were any drugs inside it.

In 2023, Civil Guard police in northwestern Spain refloated a “narcosub” they suspected may have been used to transport cocaine. A video showed the divers inspecting the vessel and measuring it underwater and another video showed officers operating a tow boat with a crane as the submarine’s bow stuck out.

In 2019, Spanish police seized a semi-submersible vessel carrying more than 6,600 pounds of cocaine off the coast of Galicia suspected to have come from south America.

Drug traffickers, especially from Colombia, have been caught using submarines to transport cocaine into Mexico, and from there into the United States. In 2023, a “narco sub” with two dead bodies and nearly three tons of cocaine aboard was seized off the coast of Colombia.

In November, the Mexican Navy said it has seized about 8,000 pounds of cocaine aboard a “narco sub” off the Pacific coast which was spotted earlier this week about 153 miles off the resort of Acapulco.

Two months before that, the U.S. Coast Guard said that it had offloaded more than $54 million worth of cocaine — including over 1,200 pounds of drugs that were seized from a “narco sub.”

Most of the vessels are only semi-submersible — a ship partially submerged that cannot fully dive like a submarine — but some are able to go fully underwater.

Galicia has long been a top entry point for drugs into Europe. A maze of coves, caves and inlets dot its rugged coastline, making it a smuggler’s paradise.

Last week, Spanish police said they arrested seven people while they were unloading 1,100 kilos of drugs from a high-speed boat in Vilanova de Arousa.