The attack on a cargo vessel earlier this month by masked armed men resulted in the extraction from the ship of a container containing over a tonne of cocaine.
The whole purpose of the raid was to remove the container before the vessel reached port.
The ship had been loaded in Ecuador, passed through Cartagena in Colombia, and then crossed the Atlantic in the direction of Spain (Valência).
On the night of September 3, at around 11pm, the crew found themselves under attack by armed men at a point where they were roughly 10 kms off the Algarve coast, near Lagos.
Reports at the time talked of ‘hostages’; of the Navy becoming involved, and of the reasons for the attack being unclear.
That has all since ‘changed’: there were no hostages. The crew followed naval safety procedures and “locked themselves into safe places” – leaving the men to “circulate through the ship, with just one objective: to remove a container with around a tonne of cocaine”, explains Expresso.
“In a short time, the men managed to load the product into the launch that had transported them to the ship. These high-speed launches can transport up to three tonnes of drugs,” says the paper.
By the time the Portuguese Navy arrived, at 6am the next morning, “there was no sign of the criminals”.
Suspicions are that this was an operation mounted ‘against the clock’.
According to a ‘judicial source’ in Portugal, the understanding is that the cartel transporting the drug must have received a tip-off that the vessel was going to be inspected when it reached its destination, and thus decided to make sure it never got there.
Investigators believe the cartel will have subcontracted this raid to a group known as Macacos (Monkeys), “specialists in placing large quantities of drugs into speed boats on the high seas, in order to evade police checks in ports”. But, according to the cargo ship’s crew, the language spoken by the intruders was not one they could identify (definitely not Latin-based in other words, nor English).
Time has moved on since this episode, which surprisingly received very little attention in the national press.
Now, it appears that authorities are concerned that this strike could be a sign of new tactics to come – particularly as controls at ports have tightened, with cartels’ control over customs inspectors weakened.
According to Expresso, there has never been a heist like this in Europe. In France, some years ago, there was the theft of a large consignment of cocaine, “but it took place on land”, at a port. This recent incident showed an unusual level of audacity – and there is nothing to show for it: no sign of the men involved, no sign of the drugs.
Expresso adds that the cargo vessel docked at Sines, for a forensic inspection – to see whether the attackers had left any traces. But it seems that they hadn’t.
The ship went on to Barcelona, and has since crossed the Atlantic back to Colombia.
Source material: Expresso
