Spain Seizes 12 Tons of Hashish

Spanish police seized 12 tons of hashish smuggled from Morocco on trucks with fuel tanks rigged to hide the drugs, authorities said today. Police arrested 35 people in what was described as the breakup of a major smuggling ring feeding the European market. Authorities said hashish traveled in trucks that took cargo ferries from Morocco to southern Spain, and were then driven to a Madrid suburb where the hashish was extracted from the vehicles' fuel tanks.

From there, some of the hashish was sent to Madrid for sale, while the rest was put aboard other trucks carrying legal merchandise to countries including Belgium, Britain, France, and Holland. Police also seized numerous bags of marijuana, $198,000 in cash, 14 vehicles, and 109 cellphones during the course of an eight-month investigation that started when authorities broke up a Madrid hashish-selling ring and went after that group's suppliers. (More Spain stories.)