Spanish police defuse hostage crisis among drug boat crew, arrest all

MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish police arrested a group of suspected cocaine smugglers on a boat from South America in the mid-Atlantic, one of whom shot dead a fellow smuggler and took the rest hostage, the interior ministry said. said on Wednesday.

It said the incident took place in November but was kept under judicial confidentiality until the investigation was completed.

In an apparent disagreement among the boat’s crew, a Serbian national took over the ship Sea Paradise, shot one of the other smugglers, threw his body overboard and killed eight others, a ministry statement said. Other crew members taken hostage.

Upon receiving information that a consignment of approximately 2.3 tonnes of cocaine from Latin America had been transferred to a small boat near the Canary Islands, Spanish police launched an operation to seize the drug, during which they discovered a hostage situation.

The statement said a police team arrived at Sea Paradise at an undisclosed location in the Atlantic and negotiated for hours with the hostage-taker, who surrendered his weapons and freed the crew, “who were forced to fight for their lives.” There was fear”.

After this, everyone on board the ship was taken into custody and a cache of cocaine was seized from a hidden compartment on the ship.

(Reporting by Emma Pinedo; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Mark Heinrich)

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