John Culatto
CUSTOMS and police officers made arrests and seizures of equipment for smuggling tobacco and drugs in Gibraltar yesterday.
Over €4,000 in cash and 125 cartons of cigarettes were seized in the tobacco smuggling incident at 1pm on December 10.
It happened in the area of British Lines Road, when a Customs enforcement unit cut off a Spanish registered car after a tip-off.
Agents tried to arrest the two Spanish men in the car, taking the driver into custody while the passenger escaped.
A total of 125 cartons of cigarettes were found in the car, which were then seized.
The driver was searched and found to have 4,000 euros on him that was also taken by officers along with the car itself.
The night before, RGP officers chased and arrested three Spanish men suspected of smuggling near Eastern Beach.
As Drug Squad officers dug deeper they searched a property on Catalan Bay Road.
There they found a semi-rigid ‘Zodiac’ launch used for smuggling with an outboard engine.
It was impounded along with a car, transceiver radios and a number of plastic petrol tanks used for the ride to and from Morocco.
A similar boat with engine and fuel containers found hidden inside a parked truck at Europa Point was also confiscated.
Investigations continue by the authorities in all of these cases.
Meanwhile, 1,200kg of cocaine were found in a container by the Spanish Coastguard at Algeciras port.
The Class A drug was hidden among a shipment of bananas from Colombia destined to be sold on the Spanish market.
