Two smugglers were injured and had to be airlifted to hospital after a fire was started in order to try and destroy their cargo, estimated at between ten and fifteen tons of hashish.
The vessel, flying the Portuguese flag, was being intercepted forty miles off the Almeria coast in an operation involving several Spanish and Portuguese agencies.
Ten people were arrested during the operation, five Portuguese, two Senegalese, one Spaniard, a Guinean and a Ghanian, and a large quantity of drugs was seized, although some had been destroyed by the fire.