Italian navy seizes 15 tons of hashish aboard the Adam off Libya
Acting on a telephone tip, two Italian Navy warships stopped the freighter Adam off the Libyan coast on 12 April 2013 and found 15 metric tons of hashish with a Syrian crew, the first of twenty Libya-route seizures.
🇮🇹 Mediterranean waters off the Libyan coast; vessel escorted to Trapani, Sicily · Italy
Investigators of Italy’s antidrug unit, acting on a telephone tip that an enormous freighter loaded with hashish was plying international waters south of Sicily and bound for Libya, sent two Italian Navy warships to stop the freighter Adam off the Libyan coast on 12 April 2013.[1]Aboard they found a terrified Syrian crew and 15 metric tons of hashish, a stash many multiples larger than Italian officials had ever seen.[1][2]
Senior investigator Francesco Amico, who waited in the Sicilian port of Trapani for the escorted ship, said there was so much of the drug that officers had to rent a warehouse to store it.[1]The seizure exposed a new trafficking route stretching from Moroccan fields along the North African coast to Libya, and the Adam was the first of 20 ships intercepted on it over the following 32 months, carrying more than 280 tons of hashish valued at 2.8 billion euros.[1][3]Investigators later traced the shipments onward from Libya overland through Egypt toward Europe, and the Spanish Tax Agency lists the Adam among the Eastern Mediterranean route seizures by Italy, France and Spain.[1][3]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Spanish Tax Agencysede.agenciatributaria.gob.esThe Tax Agency intercepts a fishing vessel carrying 9 tonnes of hashish in a new operation against drug trafficking in the Eastern Mediterranean
Open questions the AI reported
A later military magazine account puts the Adam's cargo at 16 tons rather than 15; this report uses the investigation's own figure of 15 metric tons.
The opened sources do not give the number of crew members or say what charges or sentences followed in Italy.
What happened to the seized hashish after the Adam was escorted to Trapani was not published in the opened sources.
Carabinieri of the Gorizia company found a 37-year-old man smoking a joint on the second floor of the disused Albero alla Transalpina in via Giuseppe Caprin on 10 November 2026 and seized more than two grams of marijuana. The man was taken to the company offices and reported to the Prefecture of Gorizia for possession of drugs for personal use; no arrest was reported.
Guardia di Finanza officers stopped a car in Lario Intelvese and recovered 21.2 grams of hashish thrown away by one of five youths. The youth was reported to the judicial authority for possession for dealing and the drugs were seized.
Carabinieri from the Donori station stopped two unemployed 20-year-olds from Ussana in a car and found a small amount of hashish and a packet of benzodiazepine medicines without a prescription. The pair were reported to the administrative authority and the driver lost his licence; nobody was arrested.
Carabinieri stopped a 35-year-old from Rieti at a checkpoint on State Road 4 Salaria by the disused ex Bosi industrial area in Cittaducale and found about 12 grams of hashish, a precision scale and packaging material in his car and home. He was released pending trial and reported to the prosecutor in Rieti on suspicion of holding drugs for sale.
