THE French Navy has seized 2.4 tonnes of drugs in the Strait of Gibraltar after firing warning shots into the air.
The crew of the drug-smuggling speedboat dumped its cargo into the sea before suffering to French forces.
The successful manoeuvre comes in stark contrast to Spanish police and the Guardia Civil combatting drug trafficking in the region, who have no legal power to do the same.
The interception happened on July 8, though France’s Ministry of the Armed Forces has only now made it public.
The amphibious ship Dixmude, deployed on the Navy’s Jeanne d’Arc 2026 mission, spotted the go-fast boat while patrolling near the Strait.
A Caiman helicopter was sent to intercept the vessel and order it to stop for an inspection. Its crew refused.
French forces then fired warning shots into the air, a tactic permitted under France’s rules for these maritime operations.
The crew responded by throwing their entire cargo overboard rather than let the Dixmude board them.
French sailors recovered 58 bales from the water, which analysis confirmed contained 2.4 tonnes of hash.
The French Navy says it runs constant anti-trafficking patrols in the Atlantic to protect maritime security and support regional stability.
Spain has no equivalent legal framework.
The law governing the Guardia Civil and Spain’s police forces allows firearms only when there is a serious risk to the life or physical safety of officers or bystanders, and only where the response is proportionate to the threat.
Courts and commanders have interpreted that narrowly, and it does not generally cover firing at a boat’s engine simply to stop it fleeing.
The Interior Ministry’s own internal rules go further still: they currently give no permission for snipers in helicopters to disable trafficking boats from the air.
Guardia Civil commanders have spent years pushing the Interior Ministry to change the law, arguing they need the power to shoot at narco-boat engines during high-speed chases in the Strait.
Guardia Civil chiefs told the national newspaper El Mundo that the current legal framework is ‘insufficient’ to deal with organised crime groups that are growing more violent, faster, and in some cases armed with weapons of war.
They argue that authorising disabling shots at engines would be ‘the only way’ to stop and intimidate these networks.
The reform demand does not stop at gunfire.
Guardia Civil chiefs also want armoured helicopters for crews involved in anti-trafficking operations, along with specialist bulletproof vests, warning that the violence used by criminal gangs has increased markedly in recent years.
Spain’s opposition Partido Popular has already registered a parliamentary motion that would explicitly authorise firearms against boats that ignore stop orders after formal warnings.
But it has not yet been approved.
Click here to read more Crime & Law News from The Olive Press.
Interesting. Not allowing shots to be fired to disable an engine. Sounds like “they” want the narco boats to get through. What could possibly be the reason not to allow the engines to be disabled? Seems a lot more dangerous having them engage in high speed chases….