Spanish police nab sailboat and cocaine cargo

Spanish police have seized 600 kilos (1,320 pounds) of cocaine on a sailboat in the Atlantic bound for Spain in a drugs operation that netted seven suspects, including three Europeans, police said Saturday.

The cocaine had been transferred to the British-registered sailboat off the coast of the island of Antigua in the Antilles, a police statement said.

Police, who had been following the sailboat since last month, intercepted it between the Portuguese islands of the Azores and Madeira and found on board 600 packets each containing a kilo of cocaine.

Three European crew members from France, Italy and Spain were arrested in the operation. Four others from Colombia, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, picked up by police in Madrid, are suspected of being responsible for the drugs network, police said.

Anti-narcotics officials believe Portugal and Spain have become the main points of entry into Europe for cocaine coming from Latin America.

In related news, a man claiming to be a Catholic priest was arrested Friday at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport after he was caught carrying 3.5 kilograms of cocaine under his robes, a spokesman for Dutch border police said.