PJ seizes 258kg of cocaine in ship-hull and Lisbon airport operations – Portugal Resident

Portugal’s Polícia Judiciária has seized a combined 258 kilograms of cocaine in two separate operations, including an elaborate trafficking scheme in which drugs were concealed beneath the waterline of a commercial ship.

The larger haul — 197kg of cocaine — was discovered inside the hull of a vessel that arrived at an unidentified Portuguese port on Saturday.

The drugs had been transported using a method known as a “sea chest”, in which divers attach fibreglass containers or waterproof packages to underwater compartments in a ship’s hull.

Once the vessel reaches its destination, other divers open the external grilles protecting the compartment and retrieve the packages.

The technique allows cocaine to cross the Atlantic without the knowledge or involvement of the ship’s crew, while distancing the criminal organisation from the vessel and its cargo during routine port inspections.

Police have not identified either the Portuguese port where the cocaine was recovered or the ship’s port of origin, saying the information must remain confidential while investigations continue.

The seizure resulted from Operation Courage, launched in recent days with the assistance of international police cooperation mechanisms.

After gathering evidence that a trafficking operation was under way, the PJ’s National Unit for Combating Drug Trafficking called in the Maritime Police Forensic Diving Group to locate and recover the cocaine.

The PJ said the method was already well known and increasingly being used by criminal organisations seeking to protect the identities of their members and reduce the risk of detection at ports.

No arrests have yet been made. Investigators are attempting to establish the structure of the criminal network behind the shipment and identify those responsible for attaching and retrieving the drugs.

Two arrested with 61kg at Lisbon airport

In a separate operation at Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport, the PJ seized another 61kg of cocaine originating in an unidentified Central American country.

Two people, aged 35 and 54, were arrested on strong suspicion of drug trafficking during Operation “Unlikely Stopover”, part of continuing efforts to prevent narcotics entering Portugal through the capital’s airport.

Police did not reveal how the cocaine was being transported or concealed.

The PJ said the drug had an extremely high degree of purity and could have produced at least 610,000 individual doses had it entered illegal distribution networks.

Both suspects appeared before a judge and were remanded in custody, the most restrictive measure available under Portuguese law, while the investigation continues.

The two seizures bring the quantity of cocaine intercepted in the operations to 258kg — 197kg hidden beneath a commercial vessel and 61kg recovered at the airport.

Source material: LUSA/ Diário de Notícias