The discovery was made when a Cameroon-flagged ship that had sailed from Brazil was stopped off the Canary Islands last week.
A shipment of salt contained 294 plastic-wrapped packages of cocaine. The shipment weighed 9,994 kilograms, police said in a statement.
All 13 crew members were arrested. A firearm was also seized in the operation, which was carried out in cooperation with, among others, U.S., Brazilian and French authorities.
The seizure is the largest ever made by Spanish authorities at sea. The largest seizure in the country was made in 2024, when Spanish police seized 13 tons of cocaine from a container ship in the port city of Algeciras in southern Spain.
Spain's close ties to Latin America and geographical proximity to Morocco, a leading producer of cannabis, make it one of Europe's main gateways for drugs.
