By the time Spanish police boarded the Nehir on February 22, 2021, the merchant ship had already drawn a lot of attention.
The 52-metre vessel was sailing under the flag of Palau and approaching the northwestern Spanish coast after a voyage to bring a large cocaine shipment from South America to Europe.
Spanish authorities had been investigating a Galician trafficking organisation based in the northwestern county of O Salnés in Pontevedra. The plan was for smaller vessels to meet the ship off Galicia, transfer the cocaine at sea and carry it ashore.
But bad weather prevented the traffickers from making the rendezvous with the Nehir, so a Navy patrol vessel went to intercept it instead.
As officers from the Policía Nacional’s GEO tactical unit boarded, someone aboard opened several water inlets. Police removed the nine crew members and recovered more than 1.8 tonnes of cocaine before the Nehir capsized. It did not immediately sink. Instead, the vessel remained afloat upside down and was towed to Gijón, where it eventually sank in the port.
Investigators now say they later discovered why the crew had tried to lose the ship.
Another 1,650 kilograms of cocaine had allegedly remained hidden aboard. According to Spain’s Interior Ministry, members of the trafficking network subsequently returned to the Nehir in Gijón and entered the vessel to recover it.
The authorities did not finally refloat the Nehir until February 2023.
But by then, the investigation had moved well beyond the ship.
