Training Ship Used to Smuggle Drugs

Here on the West Coast, a great variety of high-volume smuggling attempts have been discovered — including open panga-style fishing boats with bales of pot piled higher than their gunwales and semi-submersible submarines carrying tons of cocaine. But a recent smuggling attempt on the East Coast took an entirely new approach: According to Reuters, Colombian smugglers paid $32,000 in bribes to two midshipmen aboard the Royal Spanish Navy’s 371-ft tall ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano for their role in bringing 17 lbs of coke and heroin from Cartagena, Colombia, to New York City.

Although the incident took place in 2014, the former midshipmen, Jorge Luis Hoayeck and Jorge Alberto Siado-Alvarez, were arrested late last month in Colombia and are expected to be extradited to the US soon. Seven other participants in the smuggling scheme were charged in 2014. Reuters reports that an additional 280 lbs of coke were recovered from the ship when it returned from New York to its Spanish homeport of San Fernando, Cádiz.

The third largest tall ship in the world, the Elcano was launched in 1928 and has logged more than two million ocean miles since — probably more than any other cadet-training vessel. Named after the captain who completed the first circumnavigation of the earth after Ferdinand Magellan died, the Elcano’s four-masted rig makes her one of the most stunningly beautiful sailing vessels in the world. Her plans were used to construct the Chilean Navy’s sistership Esmeralda in 1954.