Spanish police on Tuesday said they had uncovered a sprawling, technologically sophisticated and “maze-like” underground tunnel used to smuggle tons of hashish from Morocco to Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta and Europe.
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Police said in a news release on Tuesday that the structure was hidden beneath a warehouse and extended over three levels, including a descent shaft and a chamber for drug storage. Police said the group operating the tunnel had installed pumping and soundproofing systems that “kept the infrastructure operational without arousing suspicion.”
The bottom of the tunnel, which led directly to Morocco, resembled “a maze typical of a mine,” equipped with trolleys “that moved on a rail system of complex construction and characteristic of perfectly designed feats of engineering.”
The bales of hashish were prepared and stored on the middle level, from where they were lifted “thanks to a system of cranes and pulleys designed to move heavy loads”, the police said.
The entire structure is 19 62 feet deep, but investigators cannot determine how long the tunnel is “because it is flooded,” the officer responsible for the operation, Antonio Martinez, explained at a press conference.
The tunnel, measuring about four feet high and nearly three feet wide, was “well-equipped” and “purpose-built” by “an extremely powerful organization” that contacted other groups to transport the drug in speedboats and fishing vessels, he added.
Authorities released video of the bust, showing officers raiding the tunnel and seizing evidence.
Police began their investigation in February 2025, seizing more than 17 tons of hashish and $1.6 million in cash in various operations in Ceuta and mainland Spain over several months.
They also made 27 arrests, including the network’s two suspected leaders. One of the leaders, based in Morocco, was arrested on Thursday night and is considered the “narco-architect” and “mastermind of the tunnels,” police said, while the other person, based in Ceuta, owned all the seized drugs.
The suspect based in Morocco is also suspected of running another drug tunnel police dismantled in Ceuta last year.
Spain’s close ties with Latin America and proximity to Morocco, a top cannabis producer, make it a key entry point for drugs into Europe.
Its small Mediterranean coastal exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, adjacent to Morocco, share the European Union’s only land borders with Africa.
Drugs are often trafficked into Spain by sea. In 2023, Spain accounted for 68% of all hashish seizures in the EU, the Reuters news agency reported, citing the mot recent data from the EU drugs agency.
In January, Spanish police said they busted a network that saw smugglers swim on the high seas to help stash Colombian cocaine on Europe-bound container ships and hijack vessels. That bust was revealed just three days after Spain announced its largest-ever seizure of cocaine at sea.
Last year, police forces dismantled a drug trafficking ring that used what authorities called high-speed “narco boats” to smuggle large quantities of cocaine from Brazil and Colombia to the Canary Islands. The ring allegedly used an abandoned shipwreck as a refueling platform for the speedboats.
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