51 kilos of cocaine smuggled into Basque Country inside surfboards

Less than a month after Basque police busted a drugs-ring exporting cocaine into Bilbao in the form of Manolo Blahniks, another operation has uncovered a similar plan.

This time the traffickers, three Italian men, smuggled 51 kilos of cocaine to Bilbao’s Loiu airport hidden inside surfboards.

Nine surfboards were seized in total and the three men were arrested at the moment they went to collect their carefully wrapped cargo at Loiu airport, to where they had flown from Chile.

Taking the cargo apart, an anti-drugs investigation team discovered between 5-6 kilos of highly-pure cocaine stuffed in the central hollow of each surfboard.

Now anti-drugs agencies in Spain, Italy and Chile are working together to discover the final destination of the cocaine. Whether or not it was intended for sale in the Basque Country, or if the men were planning a further stop.