A sunny summer morning at Sabinillas beach in the Málaga municipality of Manilva turned slightly surreal for beachgoers when they heard the sound of a helicopter approaching.
Below it was a speedboat, ploughing through the waves at great speed and heading in the same direction: a packed beach full of bemused people holding up their mobile phones.
Spanish police have posted a video by a witness that shows the helicopter hovering just a few metres above the speedboat along the shore, as the smuggler then decides to crash into the shore and make a run for it on foot.
Unfortunately the bystander's camera skills go a bit haywire after that, but we do know from local Andalusian daily Diario Sur that the smuggler was intercepted by an off-duty police officer, just as the helicopter had lost sight of him along Manilva’s beachfront.
The smuggler is said to be from La Línea de La Concepción, a coastal town close to the Strait of Gibraltar that in recent years has become a hotbed of drug trafficking.
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The smuggler in question was first apprehended by the police helicopter when he was supplying one of the so-called “narco speedboats” with more fuel for another trip to Morocco and back.
Police later said the incident could have had far more disastrous consequences to the public as the smuggler was carrying several barrels of fuel on board which could have exploded when the speedboat hit the sand.