Italian police made a major bust, seizing more than 10 tons of hashish stashed aboard an ocean-bound fishing boat.
Police boarded the Dutch-flagged "Quest" some 130 miles (210 km) south of Sicily after tracking the boat for more than 40 hours as it made its way through the Mediterranean. The boat was reportedly intercepted after it had set sail from Malta and had picked up the drugs after a rendezvous with dealers off the coast of Morocco and Algeria. It was headed for the Straits of Gibraltar, where it met drug dealers arriving on speedboats, but were caught red-handed by police.
The 10 tons of hashish has a reported street value at between 15-20 million euros ($18-24 million).
Nine crew members were arrested. Two of the detainees have been identified as members of a "dangerous" Maltese criminal organization, according to authorities. They had previously been arrested in Spain last summer in a joint operation between the GDF and Spanish police for trafficking 6,000 cases of contraband cigarettes. Another suspect was a Sicilian, whose criminal record includes a previous conviction for armed robbery.
The raid conducted by Italian police was part of an international anti-drug trafficking initiative called "Libeccio International" - Libeccio is a southwesterly wind that sweeps Italy and Corsica - in which Italy collaborates with a number of other European nations.
