NDEA communiqué: Fishing boat arrested for suspected drug trafficking |19 December 2013

A fishing boat together with its crew suspected of being involved in drug trafficking have been arrested.

The National Drugs Enforcement Agency (NDEA) said in a communiqué dated December 18, 2013 that just before first light on the morning of December 18, 2013, an NDEA patrol boat operating three hours south of Mahé arrested a fishing boat suspected of being involved in drug trafficking.

The communiqué adds that the boat, together with its skipper and crew were escorted into port where an extensive search is underway.

The NDEA confirmed that some suspected illegal drugs and some suspected illegally caught species have been discovered during the initial stages of the search. The latter has been handed over to the police and department of environment officials for investigation.

The NDEA has, together with other law enforcement agencies, been monitoring the movements of certain boats operating out of the inner islands for some time, and yesterday’s interception is the culmination of a painstaking  operation which has been in the planning stage for a number of weeks.

The boat, which had been fishing off the islands in the southern Indian Ocean for some weeks, was due to arrive in Mahé some hours after it was seized by the NDEA.