SPAIN HOLDS 55 AFTER BIG COCAINE SEIZURE

Spanish police were yesterday holding 55 men after a dramatic mid-Atlantic
raid on a St Vincent and Grenadines-registered trawler in which they
discovered some 10 tons of pure cocaine en route for the European markets.

The operation, codenamed "Operation Temple", is the culmination of many
months of investigation involving anti-drug police in several countries and
the tracking of the trawler Tammsaare across the Atlantic after it was
first spotted near Panama on June 18th until the boarding operation some
900 miles from the Canary Islands. Police have not revealed the port of
origin of the trawler, although they suspect that the cargo originated in
Colombia.

A group of the crack GEO antiterrorist police accompanied customs officers
to the rendezvous in two high-speed customs vessels from which they
intercepted the Tammsaare and arrested its crew of 16, all believed to be
Russian and Belarusan sailors, one of whom died after suffering an epilepsy
attack. Thirty-nine others were arrested in simultaneous raids in Galicia,
Las Palmas, Alicante and Madrid.

Drug officers say they believe that the ultimate destinations of the
cocaine were various European ports and that the gang had planned to unload
their cargo into other boats off the coast of northern Spain or Portugal.

As he prepared to fly out to the Canary Islands yesterday afternoon to
await the arrival of the Tammsaare, Mr Juan Cotino, director general of the
national police, said that the operation was still under way and that he
did not discount further arrests over the next few days.

He said that 10 tonnes was the second largest maritime cocaine haul ever
made, but that the exact amount would not be known until the trawler had
docked and the cargo - which comes in 323 separate packets each labelled
with a US dollar note - weighed. Three years ago US DEA officials seized a
cargo of 20 tons of cocaine in a similar high-seas raid.

Speaking in Madrid yesterday Mr Jurgen Storbeck, director of Europol,
praised the successful operation. "It is one of the most important in
recent years," he said.