By Larry Celona and Natalie O’Neill From New York Post

Officers aboard a legendary Spanish navy ship smuggled $400,000 worth of cocaine into New York City in a daring intercontinental scheme, federal sources said.

The officers aboard the Royal Spanish Navy training ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano were recruited to deliver the massive stash of dope by Colombian drug dealers while docked in Cartagena de Indias, authorities said.

Once in New York, the ship dropped anchor near the USS Intrepid on the West Side before the three officers delivered 20 kilos of coke to two Colombians in May, the authorities said.

The Colombians were arrested shortly after, but the officers weren’t busted until they arrived back in Spain on July 12, the sources said.

Weeks later, on Aug. 2, Spanish authorities discovered 127 kilos of cocaine — valued at roughly $2.5 million — stashed in storage rooms inside the vessel’s reserve sails.

To get the drugs onto the ship, the officers split it up and smuggled it aboard in their clothes, authorities said.

They skirted customs checks on their six-month journey by using the beautiful old ship as cover, authorities said.

Built in 1927, the vessel is the third-largest tall ship in the world — dubbed “our most emblematic and symbolic vessel,” by the Spanish navy.

Members of Spain’s Ministry of Defense and roughly 70 trainees from the Spanish navy were aboard the ship.

The officers were charged with drug trafficking and taken to Alcala-Meco military prison in Madrid, authorities said.

They face up to six years in jail.

“As a result of the investigations, it was possible to make a detailed reconstruction of the route taken by the drug and the modus operandi of the accused sailors,” Spanish police said in a statement.

“It was unloaded and delivered in New York to other Colombian drug traffickers, who then paid for the service,” the police statement said.

Two of the officers who were arrested are from Spain and one is from Ecuador, authorities said.

The 370-foot-long ship is named after Spanish explorer Juan Sebastián Elcano, the captain of Ferdinand Magellan’s final fleet.

IMAGE: The Spanish navy training ship the Juan Sebastian de Elcano Photo: AP

For more on this story go to: http://nypost.com/2014/08/06/spanish-naval-ship-dropped-off-cocaine-in-new-york-cops/

Related story:

US Coast Guard seize cocaine worth US$19m in Caribbean

From DaVibes

FLORIDA, (CMC) — The United States Coast Guard says it has seized more than 570 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated value of US$19 million.

The Coast Guard said Friday the drugs were seized during a patrol, dubbed “Operation Unified Resolve” and that a go-fast vessel with five people had been detained.

It said the five suspected smugglers aboard the go-fast vessel were turned over to US federal law enforcement officials in St Petersburg, Florida.

The Coast Guard said its efforts under Operation Unified Resolve “contribute to the interagency results being achieved each and every day locally under Operation Caribbean Guard” and that together with other stakeholders, they are “working diligently to deter, detect and disrupt illicit maritime trafficking to Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands”.

For more on this story go to:

http://dominicavibes.dm/us-coast-guard-seize-cocaine-worth-us19m-in-caribbean/