The operation took place during the morning, with the coastguard from the Spanish province of Huelva and the police from Isla Cristina - a municipality in Huelva - intercepting the boat after they were alerted by members of Portugal's GNR of "suspicious movements off Isla Cristina", about 20 kilometres from the frontier, the latter said.


After searching boats offshore in the River Guadiana and near the fishing port of Isla Cristina, Spanish police seized a fishing boat tied up in the port that "contained inside it 50 bundles of hashish" weighing about 1,500 kilograms", a GNR spokesman said.

The drugs seized have a market value of about €4 million, the spokesman added.