Merchant vessel Mayak held off Málaga with 12 tonnes of hashish
Spanish Customs Surveillance intercepted the merchant vessel Mayak in the Alboran Sea south-east of Málaga on 16 March 2014 and found about 12,000 kilos of hashish aboard. Its eight Syrian crew members were arrested in the joint Operation Oriente with French Customs.
Spanish Customs Surveillance intercepted the merchant vessel Mayak in the Alboran Sea south-east of Málaga in the early hours of Sunday 16 March 2014 and found bales of the type commonly used to transport hashish, estimated at about 12,000 kilos.[1]Air and sea surveillance assets of the Customs Surveillance Service and French Customs had flagged the vessel for unusual manoeuvres in an area where a vessel of that type is not usually found, and the patrol vessel Fulmar boarded it with the flag state’s authorisation.[1]
All eight crew members, of Syrian nationality, were arrested, and the vessel and its cargo were seized for transfer to the port of Málaga and handed to the competent court.[1]The agency presented the seizure, under Operation Oriente, as the sixth large hashish interception on the eastern Mediterranean route since the previous June, bringing that route’s running total past 75 tonnes.[1]Its 2014 annual report lists the Mayak boarding among the year’s key Customs Surveillance actions.[2]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The 12,000-kilo figure was the agency's estimate pending an official count; no final weighed total was published in the opened sources.
The vessel's flag state was described only as a flag of convenience and was not named.
No independent press account of the boarding was found; the agency's 2014 annual report lists the Mayak operation among its key Customs Surveillance actions.
No court outcome for the eight crew members was reported in the opened sources.
No photograph of the vessel or the seized hashish with a recoverable direct image address was found in the opened sources.
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