On 6 October 2021, Customs Surveillance officers in Murcia watched a suspect hide a refrigerated lorry near the fishing port of San Pedro del Pinatar while a fishing vessel under investigation put to sea without fishing gear, then kept the port under surveillance until the vessel returned a few hours later.[1] As the boat docked, bales of the kind typically used for hashish resin began moving from its deck to the lorry, and the officers moved in, arresting the three men doing the unloading: two Spanish nationals and one Moroccan national.[1]
Once fully unloaded, the haul totalled 130 bales weighing 4,360 kg of hashish.[1] The operation, codenamed Racel, grew out of a 2020 investigation into a suspected smuggling organisation using a fishing vessel based at the port.[1] The detainees, the drugs, the boat and the lorry were to go before Investigating Court No. 4 in San Javier, and the agency said further arrests could not be ruled out.[1]
