In Galicia, cocaine is popularly known as ‘fariña’. And in this case, a criminal organization took advantage of a shipment of ‘legal’ flour to try to sneak more than 200 kilos of the white powder into Europe. The drugs were intercepted in the outer port of La Coruña on the ‘Energy Glory’, a Panamanian-flagged ship with a Filipino crew, including its captain. The ship came from Brazil, landed in La Coruña on Saturday and its next stop was going to be the port of Huelva, although the final destination planned for the ship is unknown, because it was not recorded.
The operation was carried out by the Civil Guard, in collaboration with the Customs Surveillance Service. The drugs were located during a series of preventive surveillance of ships coming from areas that are considered ‘hot’ in terms of drug trafficking. Brazil is one of them. The agents were right when they got their hands on the ‘Energy Glory’, finding in its entrails 230 kilos of cocaine that were traveling along with 25 tons of ‘legal’ flour. The Government delegate in Galicia, Pedro Blanco, offered this Monday four outlines of the operation in a media address from the Civil Guard Command of La Coruña, in the Coruña neighborhood of Lonzas, where the investigators have exhibited to the press all the seized drugs.
The subdelegate of the Government in La Coruña, María Rivas, has also been there; the general chief of the 15th Zone of the Civil Guard, Miguel Ángel González; the colonel chief of the La Coruña Command, Fernando Pedreira; the head of the Regional Customs and Special Taxes Unit of Galicia, Jaime Gayá, and the regional area head of the Customs Surveillance Service, Fernando Iglesias.
Open investigation
The ‘Energy Glory’ had docked at 11:45 p.m. on Saturday in the outer port of Punta Langosteira in A Coruña. And it was around 1:00 p.m. on Sunday when the agents found the cocaine: eight bundles hidden in a cooling duct in the stern. Each of these bales, in turn, contained 229 packages about one kilo of cocaine. The total sum of the substance involved amounts to about 230 kilos. A team from the Special Group of Underwater Activities of the Civil Guard (GEAS) located them.
The investigation remains open to try to discover which organization is behind the importation of this narcotic substance. At the moment, there are no detainees, as acknowledged by the Government delegate in Galicia. But Pedro Blanco wanted to congratulate the members of the joint team of the Civil Guard and the Customs Surveillance Service who were the protagonists of the discovery. It is “a new success for the State security forces and bodies,” highlighted the Government delegate in Galicia, because “it prevents the introduction of a significant amount of drugs into Europe and Spain.”
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