The Joint Unit for the Control of Containers and Vessels (Unité Mixte de Contrôle des Conteneurs et des Navires-UMCCN) in Dakar (Senegal) intervened on 18 October to carry out a search on the yacht “La Rosa” in the port of Dakar.
The UMCCN trained in ship searches by the SEACOP project found a hideout behind the passenger cabins in which around 100 coated canvas bags loaded with cocaine were founded. In total, 2026 kg of cocaine were seized. The crew, consisting of five people of different West African nationalities (two Guineans, two Senegalese and one Sierra Leonean), was also arrested and brought to justice.
The SEACOP project, which is part of the European Union’s Global Illicit Flows Programme (GIFP), is being implemented in six African countries and a large number of Caribbean and South American countries and aims to strengthen the fight against major illegal trafficking across the Atlantic Ocean, particularly cocaine trafficking. The projet seeks to encourage the creation of maritime control units and maritime intelligence units.
This seizure demonstrates the relevance of the initiative taken by the European Union, which will be continued over the next two years through a phase 5 of the SEACOP project.
