MONTEVIDEO - Police have broken a drug ring that smuggled cocaine hidden in surfboards bound from South America to Europe, Uruguayan officials said.
The capture of the narcotics came after cooperative efforts by anti-drug police in Uruguay, Spain, Portugal and Italy, the officials said.
So far, three Italian citizens have been arrested, two in Portugal and one in Italy, they said.
"Operation Iris is unprecedented in our country because of the scope and significance of international cooperation," National Police Director Jose Manuel Azambuya said in a conference in which authorities from other countries participated via video link.
Sniffer dogs from an anti-drug unit in Uruguay signalled something suspicious in a package with the six surfboards on May 23, police said. Cocaine was found in the boards.
A total of 40.6kg of cocaine was found in five of the boards, police said. A sixth was allowed to pass through so authorities in Europe could track who was receiving the narcotics.
Portuguese police arrested the two individuals who went to pick up the package, which had transited through Spain, on June 7. The remaining surfboard held about 9.3kg of cocaine, police said.
An Italian citizen who sent the surfboards from Uruguay was arrested in Italy on June 11, and is awaiting extradition to stand trial in Uruguay, a police statement said.
Uruguay, sandwiched between Argentina and Brazil, has become in recent years a major transit point for cocaine from Colombia and Peru bound for Europe.