Spanish police on Wednesday said they had arrested nine people, including one of the country’s biggest drug smugglers, after finding cocaine hidden in a shipment of bananas from Colombia.
The authorities said they opened their investigation after police with sniffer dogs uncovered 54kg of high quality cocaine hidden inside boxes of bananas as they were being unloaded at the port of Marin in the northwestern region of Galicia.
Officers arrested six people who came to pick up the cocaine, as well as three others in the southern town of Dilar, who were allegedly part of the ring that organized the shipment, a statement said.
TOP DRUG DEALER
The detainees included the leader of the drug smuggling ring, identified only as Antonio Manuel BI, a Spanish national described by police as “one of Spain’s top drug dealers.”
Police said the suspect had been on the run since being sentenced to 17 years in jail in 2006 for drug smuggling and other crimes.
He was detained in Spain in 2001 on suspicion of being part of a ring trying to smuggle more than 1,000kg of cocaine out of Colombia.
CHANGED APPEARANCE
“In addition to using false documents, technological systems to prevent his communications from being intercepted and bodyguards, he also frequently changed his physical appearance,” the statement said.
Three other Spaniards were arrested, along with a Russian, a Colombian, an Argentine, a Peruvian and a Mexican in the probe into the cocaine found in the banana shipment.
Spain’s proximity to north Africa, a major source of hashish, and its close ties with its former colonies in Latin America, a key cocaine producing region, have made the country a major gateway into Europe for drug traffickers.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not