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Date Published: 03/02/2022
ARCHIVED - Drug traffickers jailed after drug-laden yacht sinks off Alicante coast
The boat sank due to excessive weight and bad sea conditions 15 miles from the port of Torrevieja
Three drug traffickers have been jailed after a rented drug-yacht carrying two-and-a-half tonnes of hashish sunk 15 miles from Torrevieja Port due to excessive weight and rough sea conditions.
The Provincial Court of Alicante has sentenced one of the men to six years in prison and two others to two and four years respectively.
The first defendant is considered to have been the ringleader and has also been fined a total of eight million euros, whilst the latter two were jailed as "accomplices to a continuous crime of smuggling" having stored four unregistered semi-rigid high-speed inflatable boats in two industrial warehouses in Santa Pola.
In addition, the owner of the rental boat has been ordered to pay a fine of 890,000 euros, and an "employee and accomplice of his" who helped prepare the yacht and other rented boats has been handed a further fine of 161,900 euros.
During the court hearing, five other people who were also accused of smuggling and concealment were acquitted due to lack of evidence.
The events unfolded on February 27 2020, when the main "ringleader" rented a pleasure yacht in Torrevieja and went sailing with another person who has not been charged with any offence.
According to police sources, they loaded on the boat with 86 bales of hashish resin with a street value of four million euros.
But in an unfortunate turn of events for the convicted traffickers, the boat sank just 15 nautical miles later.
Police towed the yacht back to port and an investigation was launched which resulted in the seizure of four speedboats from a warehouse in Santa Pola, two of them in the process of being manufactured and assembled, which were not registered in the Special Register of Operators of High Speed Pneumatic and Semi-rigid Vessels.
Image: Archive
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