This is The Guardian.
Today, on the hunt for narco subs.
Last month, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean,
hundreds of miles from the Portuguese coast,
police spotted a barely visible vessel camouflaged against the sea.
About 40 feet long, its nose bobbing through the waves,
this curious looking sort of submarine was carrying a crew of four men.
Four men, and it turns out, tons and tons of cocaine.
We're talking about almost nine tons, which we think is a European record,
and it's certainly the largest quantity of cocaine ever seized by Portuguese authorities.
And this seizure would cost the smugglers dearly.
The estimated value of the cocaine aboard that sub is around 600 million euros,
so an enormous amount and very, very valuable.
The police took around 300 bales of cocaine, but the rest?
At some point,
the narco sub started to go down and it took about 35 bales of the cocaine with it to the bottom of the Atlantic,
somewhere off the Azores.
Sam Jones is the Guardian's Madrid correspondent and he's been following the twisty journey of a drug seizure that has been held as a major victory by law enforcement agencies working together from the US,
UK and Portugal.
The last few years have seen more busts like this,