SPANISH POLICE SEIZE BIG COCAINE HAUL IN ATLANTIC

MADRID - Spanish police seized a Venezuelan fishing boat in mid-Atlantic on
Saturday and landed a haul of almost two tons of cocaine, authorities said.

Police boarded the boat some 550 miles west of the Canary Islands and
arrested its seven Venezuelan crew in the early hours, a Spanish government
official said.

The seizure -- Spain's largest so far this year -- was the result of a
year-long police, customs and navy operation which involved the arrests of
12 Spaniards.

Interior Ministry official Gonzalo Robles, who heads Spain's anti-drug
agency, told reporters that the ramshackle fishing vessel had been bound
for the northern Spanish fishing port of La Coruna and the drugs were in 76
bundles on the ship's deck.

Robles, who said the 80 percent purity cocaine appeared to have come from
Colombia, declined to give a street value for the drugs but said the amount
was enough to supply users with more than 16 million individual "hits."

The drugs had been transferred to a Spanish naval vessel and were now being
taken to Spain's Canary Islands off western Africa, while the ship and its
crew were being towed to the Spanish mainland, Robles added.

French police last month found almost 400 kg of cocaine which they
estimated to have a street value of 73 million euros ($65 million). At
similar prices, Saturday's haul could have been worth more than 350 million
euros in the European market.

Colombia produces around 580 tons of cocaine a year, 80 percent of the
world's total supply.