Lisboñ, Nov. 4, 2025 (Lusa) - Portugal's criminal investigation police agency, PJ, said on Tuesday that the four people arrested in the operation it carried out with the Navy and Air Force, which resulted in the seizure of 1.7 tonnes of cocaine in the Atlantic Ocean, have been remanded in custody.
At a press conference, the coordinator of the Judicial Police's National Unit for Combating Drug Trafficking, Vítor Ananias, said that the detainees included two Ecuadorians, a Venezuelan and a Colombian and that the investigation would determine the "hierarchical division".
The four suspects were remanded in custody after being heard by the criminal investigation court in Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, in the Azores.
"They are of different nationalities. This also shows that the organisations are not based in just one country but are highly mobile. They were aged over 40 and under 65," he noted.
According to the official, the crew on board the semi-submersible, which came from Venezuela and was bound for the Iberian Peninsula, had "some experience in the maritime environment and their job was precisely to bring the narcosubmarine to a point in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and return".
"You collect different pieces of information that help build a “puzzle”. Once this “puzzle” is built, we more or less have an idea of what the “big picture” of the situation is and from there we begin to adapt national resources to carry out interventions and interdictions at sea," he emphasised, recalling the international cooperation framework for sharing information.
Vítor Ananias stressed that it is a "dynamic process" and that the authorities are "orienting the means to make the intervention successful", indicating that they will "continue to ensure" their effort to combat criminal organisations.
The coordinator of Portugal's criminal investigation police agency, PJ's National Unit for Combating Drug Trafficking, added that the detainees didn't put up "any kind of resistance" because they had been at sea for 15 days, "completely enclosed in a confined space, without any kind of privacy or perks".
"With the heat, the fumes from the boat, the high swell, the difficult weather conditions, one day is difficult, after 15 or 20 days, it's completely like wanting to get out of there," he said.
Also at the press conference, the spokesman for the Portuguese Navy and the National Maritime Authority, Commander Ricardo Sá Granja, said that the seizure took place more than 1,852 kilometres (km) from Lisbon.
"The Navy, through a vast series of means from the operational component of the force system, namely command and control, surveillance and force projection capabilities, committed around 70 military personnel to this operation, for more than 138 hours, around six days, and also with more than 1,527 nautical miles sailed during this operation, more than 2,800 kilometres sailed," he said.
The commander said that due to the fragility of the narcosubmarine's construction, "it wasn't possible" to tow it to land and "it ended up sinking".
The head of the Air Operations Centre of the Portuguese Air Force Air Command, Colonel Agostinho Rocha, recalled that the air branch of the Armed Forces collaborates with the Judicial Police and the Navy in this type of operation, whenever "it is requested and operationally possible".
JML/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
