A ‘narco submarine’ carrying a record haul of cocaine believed to be worth £520million has been seized while heading to Europe.
Portuguese authorities on Monday said they had intercepted nearly nine tonnes of narcotics ‘in recent days’ some 265 miles off the the Azores archipelago in the North Atlantic.
A police spokesperson called the operation ‘the biggest seizure of cocaine ever in Portugal,’ and said officers were assisted by the navy and air force, as well as UK and US authorities, in difficult weather conditions.
The submersible eventually sank with 35 of the 300 packages of drugs it was carrying, the police said.
The submarine came from Latin America and had three Colombians and a Venezuelan on board. All four were arrested.
Dramatic videos shared by Portuguese police show officers navigating rough seas as they try to reach the submersible.
Images also show the inside of the vessel, as well as dozens of bales of cocaine stacked next to each other after they were seized by police.
In a statement, Portuguese police said: ‘The Polícia Judiciária (PJ), through the National Unit for Combating Drug Trafficking, carried out in recent days, jointly with the Navy and the Air Force, an operation to combat transcontinental drug trafficking by sea, during which it was possible to locate and intercept, on the high seas, a semi-submersible vessel used to transport several tons of cocaine.
Portuguese authorities have seized a record haul of cocaine from a semi-submersible craft intercepted off the Azores archipelago
This handout picture released on January 26, 2026 by the Portugal’s Air Force shows an semi-submersible craft carrying cocaine intercepted off the Azores archipelago by the Portuguese authorities during an operation assisted by Portugal’s navy and air force, as well as the UK and US authorities
Police officers stand near packs of cocaine after the massive haul of drugs was seized by Portuguese forces
‘Inside the vessel, which originated in Latin America and was crewed by four foreign nationals, 300 bales of cocaine were being transported.’
The police force added that an investigation is underway ‘in coordination with partner authorities from ither countries.’
The use of semi-submersible vessels have been widely used in Colombia and other parts of South and Central America to transport massive hauls of drugs for several decades, but the vehicles were not detected in Europe until recent years.
The first narco-sub found in European waters was recovered in Galicia, Spain in 2019.
The seizure of the massive cocaine haul in European waters comes just days after the US military said it had carried out a deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
US Southern Command on Friday said on social media that the boat was ‘engaged in narco-trafficking operations’ and that the strike killed two people and left one survivor.
It said it notified the Coast Guard to launch search and rescue operations for that person.
A video accompanying the post announcing the latest strike shows a boat moving through the water before exploding in flames.
The submarine came from Latin America and had three Colombians and a Venezuelan on board
Images shared by police showed dozens of bales of cocaine stacked next to each other after they were seized
Dramatic videos also show officers navigating rough seas as they try to reach the submersible
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The US military has focused lately on seizing sanctioned oil tankers with connections to Venezuela since the Trump administration launched an audacious raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and bring him to New York to face drug trafficking charges.
With the latest military action, there have been 36 known strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in South American waters since early September that killed at least 117 people, according to announcements from the US military and Trump. The majority of those of strikes have occurred in the Caribbean Sea.
The last reported boat strikes occurred in late December, when the military said it struck five alleged drug-smuggling boats over two days, killing a total of eight people while others jumped overboard. Days later, the Coast Guard suspended its search.
The US conducted a large-scale operation in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, on Jan. 3 that led to the capture of Maduro and his wife, who were then flown to New York to face federal drug trafficking charges.
Maduro, before his capture, said the US military operations were a thinly veiled effort to oust him from power.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that the US strikes targeting alleged smugglers are having an enormous impact on slowing drug trafficking routes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
‘We’ve stopped — virtually stopped almost 100% of all drugs coming in by water,’ Trump said in remarks on Thursday at the World Economic Forum at Davos.
