Four Spaniards are being held in Praia on charges of international drug trafficking after being caught on the high seas with five tons of cocaine, judicial sources quoted by Rádio de Cabo Verde (RCV) said on Tuesday December 12.
Meanwhile, French authorities, in a statement, valued the drugs at 330 million euros. The four detainees were heard in court in Praia and agreed to be extradited to Spain, which should be processed in the coming weeks, the judicial sources added.
According to the same sources, the Spaniards were in the vicinity of the port of Praia, where they fled in a speedboat after being chased on the high seas by the authorities, who intercepted them with the drugs.
In a statement, the French Atlantic Maritime Prefecture referred to the arrest of the four suspects in Cape Verde, following the interception on Wednesday, December 6, of “5,132 kilos of cocaine, with an estimated market value in France of more than 330 million euros”.
The operation involving French navy assets took place in an area of the Gulf of Guinea, not specified in the document, based on information transmitted by the Maritime Analysis and Operations Center (Narcotics) (MAOC-N) in Lisbon from the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).