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Suspected drug trafficker dies in high-speed boat chase in Spain

A high-speed boat chase near the Spanish port city of Cádiz left one alleged drug trafficker dead and four injured when their vessel crashed into the riverbank late at night, authorities said Sunday.

Published: 2 September 2024 14:06 CEST

Suspected drug trafficker dies in high-speed boat chase in Spain

Speedboats are now regularly used by drug traffickers to get their merchandise over to Spain quickly. Photo: Civil Guard/AFP

Spain’s Civil Guard said officers on the water backed by a helicopter began pursuing eight boats spotted entering the Guadalquivir River at full speed Saturday night, with the aim of preventing them from unloading their suspected illicit cargo.

One boat “loaded with drugs” managed to dock next to another that the crew then used to flee, the Civil Guard said in a statement, adding that “47 bales of hashish” were left behind on the abandoned vessel.

Members of the Civil Guard continued their chase of the boat carrying the suspected traffickers, which then accelerated before crashing head-on “at full power” into the riverbank.

“The boat overturned, resulting in the death of one person, while four others were injured to varying degrees,” the statement said.

Another 74 bales of hashish were recovered around the accident site in addition to the drugs found on the first vessel.

The accident comes seven months after the death of two civil guards whose boat was struck by a drug boat during a chase in the port of Barbate, in the province of Cádiz.

The region regularly sees drug seizures by Spanish customs agents and the Civil Guard, with Spain being among the main entry points of drugs into Europe.

READ MORE: Why is Spain Europe’s cocaine gateway?

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Shakira compares Spain's tax office to 'Spanish Inquisition'

The “Hips Don’t Lie” singer reached a settlement in 2023 to avoid a trial in Barcelona over alleged tax fraud.

“The Spanish state kept more than all my income for those years,” she wrote in her letter to El Mundo.

“It may seem incomprehensible, but for me, the Spanish decade was a lost decade financially, and not because I worked little, as everyone knows,” she added.

Shakira settled with prosecutors on the opening day of her trial in Barcelona in November 2023 over charges she had defrauded tax authorities of €14.5 million ($16 million) earned between 2012 and 2014.

As part of the deal, she accepted the charges in exchange for paying a fine of nearly €7.8 million to avoid serving time in jail.

At the time she explained she had settled “with the best interest of my kids at heart”. She needed “to move past the stress and emotional toll of the last several years” and focus on her career, she said.

In May 2024 a Spanish court said it had shelved a second probe into alleged tax fraud by Shakira concerning her 2018 income tax return, ending her legal problems in Spain.

Shakira now lives in Miami with her two sons after splitting from star footballer Gerard Piqué, who at the time played for Barcelona.

A public ‘burning’

In her letter to El Mundo, she accused Spain’s tax office of being more interested in “burning her in public” than listening to her arguments.

“You don’t solve things by burning people at the stake like in an Inquisition trial,” the 47-year-old added.

As she had argued to the court, the singer once again denied that she lived in Spain for more than 183 days a year between 2012 and 2014, the threshold above which a person is considered a taxable resident.

Spain’s tax office went through her social media posts to gather evidence that she had in fact been in Spain for over 183 days per year. Its lawyers summoned dozens of witnesses, including her hairdresser and neighbours to back their case.

Spain has in recent years cracked down on celebrities such as Argentine football star Lionel Messi and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, for unpaid taxes.

Both players were convicted of evasion and received prison sentences that were waived for first-time offenders.

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