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United S, an old vessel that looks as if it should belong in a junkyard, is sitting on the dock of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
In fact, the investigation is worth several million euros.
Since the elite Spanish police officers discovered a record-breaking ten tonnes of cocaine hidden within its hold, the aging cargo ship is under intense police scrutiny.
READ MORE Watch as elite Spanish police officers storm a cargo ship near the Canary Islands to uncover ten tonnes of cocaine hidden under a mountain of salt.
Olive Press examines the history of the United States and reveals fingerprints of the perfect drug-transport.
Built in 1991, the United S fits the classic profile of a ‘burner’ ship – a disposable asset used by cartels for one-way trips where the risk of seizure is priced in.
The vessel’s commercial prime is long gone at 35 years of age.
READ MORESpanish police warn: The drop in the price of cocaine is pushing drug traffickers into recycling narcosubmarines
It flies the flag of Tanzania, a jurisdiction currently on the ‘Grey List’ of the Paris MoU on Port State Control, often used by operators looking to avoid stringent safety inspections.
The ownership of the company is also opaque.
The vessel was purchased in 2023 by Rania Marine Co., a shell registered in Marshall Islands. Rania Shipping Ltd., a Turkish entity, manages the vessel operationally.
This setup allows the true ‘beneficial owner’ – the person actually pulling the strings – to remain anonymous, shielding the cartel bosses even if the crew is caught.
READ MORE ‘Historic blow against drug trafficking’ as notorious Balkan Cartel group is dismantled – over two tonnes of cocaine are seized in raids across Costa del Sol triangle
Ship movements before the raid were also suspicious.
The United States did not declare that it would stop in a particular European port after loading its cargo and crossing the Atlantic.
Instead, maritime tracking data listed its destination simply as ‘For Order’.
This is a common tactic in maritime smuggling, implying the captain was waiting for last-minute instructions to either offload the drugs to smaller ‘narco speed boats’ that currently infest Spanish seas or divert to a port where security might be lax.
READ MORERaids on Costa del Sol topple a cocaine-trafficking gang shipping drugs into the UK
All 13 crew members being arrested shows that investigators do not believe any claims that they were unaware or unwitting smugglers.
The ship ran out fuel shortly after the Policia Nacional GEO Team secured the bridge. It was located 535km west of the Canary Islands.
After 12 hours of drifting, the vessel had to be towed in by maritime rescue services on Sunday afternoon.
This is yet another red flag – in the world of legitimate shipping, running out of fuel in open water is virtually unheard of.
A captain’s career would be ended by a disastrous failure in planning.
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For the United States, it was probably a calculated gamble that backfired.
Security experts speculate that the fuel shortage means the vessel was acting as a ‘mother ship’.
Rather than heading directly to a port, these vessels often loiter in international waters for days or weeks, waiting for smaller ‘go-fast’ boats to ferry the drugs to the Spanish coast in batches.
This ‘station keeping’ burns through fuel reserves.
READ MORENarcos have been operating from the tourist hotspots of La Duquesa & Estepona, confiscating TEN TONES of petrol.
The fact that the United S ran out of fuel suggests a breakdown in its logistics: either the pickup boats were late, or a rendezvous illegal for sea-bunkering was not held.
The cartel was likely to abandon or scuttle the vessel after the cocaine had been unloaded.
Recent Atlantic storms including the tail of Storm Goretti would have caused significant swells in the last few days off the coasts of West Africa and Canaries.
These rough sea conditions likely would have made a ship-to-ship transfer to small ‘go-fast’ boats impossible, forcing the United S to hold its position and burn through its final fuel reserves while waiting for a calm window that never opened.
The empty fuel tank made them easy targets for the Spanish Police, who turned a 35-year old rust bucket into Spain’s largest ever high seas bust.
Under police guard now, the United S may have made its last voyage. Unknowingly, it has delivered the biggest high-seas drug haul in the Policia Nacional’s history.
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