Italian authorities have seized a file 5.3 tonne cocaine haul being transferred between ships off the southern coast of Sicily, police mentioned on Friday.
The consignment had an estimated worth of 850 million euros ($946 million) and 5 individuals have been arrested, the Guardia di Finanza mentioned in an announcement.
Police had been monitoring a ship that sailed from South America and swooped within the early hours of Wednesday, when a surveillance plane noticed packages being thrown from its deck into the waters of the Strait of Sicily to be collected by a ready fishing trawler.
They stopped the trawler and located massive portions of medicine in a hidden compartment behind some panelling on the vessel. Two Tunisians, an Italian, an Albanian and a French nationwide have been arrested.
Sicilian regional president Renato Schifani praised the operation as a blow in opposition to drug smuggling.
“Drugs are a scourge of our society fuelled by unscrupulous men who sow death by crushing hopes and destroying many families,” he mentioned in an announcement.
In April, Italian police had discovered nearly 2 tonnes of cocaine floating at sea off japanese Sicily which they imagine had been left by a cargo ship for assortment.
Source: www.anews.com.tr
