Spain Seizes 13 Tons of Cocaine, Investigation Reaches California SPAC Founders

Spanish police seized 13 tons of cocaine from a ship in the Mediterranean port of Algeciras in the fall of 2024, Japan Times reported. The seizure, Spain’s largest at the time, occurred off the Canary Islands aboard a vessel carrying a cargo purported to be bananas from Latin America. Authorities detained the ship’s 23-member crew without bail.

An investigation into the seizure uncovered an alleged money-laundering network linking financiers with Wall Street connections, an Irish fintech trading crypto assets, luxury Dubai real estate and multiple offshore lenders, Spanish authorities said.

The alleged network reached the founders of a special-purpose acquisition company based in Newport Beach, California, that raised $200 million from investors in 2025.