The Portuguese authorities apprehended four individuals when they intercepted a narco-sub that was transporting over 1.7 tonnes of cocaine in the mid-Atlantic.
According to the officials, the semi-submersible ship was heading to the Iberian Peninsula and had been captured in recent days.
The video captures the police and navy around the ship and boarding it, then taking possession of the Class A drug and arresting four crew members, reportedly of South American origin.
It was reported that the suspects, two of the Ecuadorians, one Venezuelan, and one Colombian, were detained in pre-trial custody following their appearance in court in the Azores on 4th November.
In a press conference, Vitor Ananias, the head of the Portuguese police unit on drug trafficking, said,”the fact that they were dealing with a variety of different nationalities depicted that the organisation they had was not located in a single country.”
According to the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre (MAOC) based in Lisbon, it had recently been informed that a criminal group was about to ship a cocaine-filled submersible to Europe.
A Portuguese vessel would then find the submersible, with the support of the National Crime Agency of the UK and the US Drug Enforcement Administration, a few days later, and the vessel was found about 1,000 nautical miles (1,852km) off the coast of Lisbon.
After capturing the ship, the navy declared that she could not be tugged back to land because of poor weather and fragile construction, and sank later on the open sea.
According to Vitor Ananias, one day is a challenge even to the four men in the vessel because of the heat, the fumes, the high waves, and the unfavorable weather conditions. All you desire is to get out at the conclusion of 15 or 20 days.
This and other incidents had been a recurring scenario in the recent past, he said, in a comment that was reported by Lusa news agency.
In March 2011, another such vessel that contained 6.5 tonnes of cocaine was seized some 1,200 nautical miles off Lisbon.
It is also happening amid a series of assaults by the Trump administration on ships that it alleges are being used to transport drugs into the US.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Sunday that three men had been killed last week in a US attack on an alleged drug vessel in the Caribbean.
Even the legality of such strikes has been questioned by the experts in relation to international law, and they have been severely criticized by Latin American leaders whose citizens have been targeted.
