Spanish police nab traffickers who saved their lives

SPANISH police arrested four drug traffickers who saved their lives after the officers were thrown overboard during a high-speed boat chase off the coast of Malaga last Friday.

The three police officers fell into the sea following a collision with the trafficking boat in the chase. A police helicopter appealed to the speedboat via megaphone to help the officers after their boat “span out of control” — and the traffickers did so, pulling the agents to safety.

However, when police found three tonnes of hashish in the water nearby, the four crew on board were arrested.

“They were drug trafficking,” a police statement said, indicating that more than 80 bundles of hash had been recovered from the sea.

In a video posted by the Guardia Civil, the boats can be seen zooming across the ocean before the trafficking boat turns into the path of the police vessel, forcing it to turn sharply, throwing the officers overboard. The video shows the officers bobbing around in the water below, before a wide shot shows the drug bundles floating nearby.

High-speed chases are not unusual off the coast of Malaga and the Costa del Sol, a known drug-smuggling route from Africa to Europe.

Morocco, just across the water, is the world’s largest exporter of cannabis resin or hashish, according to the UN.

A chase at the end of last year saw police ram a suspected drug boat, before officers from the chasing helicopter intercepted the fleeing suspects on land. The Spanish government has moved to ban the high-speed semi-inflatable boats, known as RIBs, commonly used by traffickers.