More than 250 illegal immigrants from Africa were arrested yesterday in six separate police operations on Spain's southern coast, officials said.
Ninety Moroccans were arrested when the civil guard intercepted two rubber dingies trying to reach the Tarifa coast across the Strait of Gibraltar.
A further 131 immigrants, most of them from sub-Saharan Africa, were detained after landing in four boats on various beaches around Tarifa.
And the boat which operates a ferry service between Tangiers and Algeciras for Moroccans returning home for their summer holidays, saved 31 people in a boat adrift in the strait.
Spain's southern coast is a popular landing point for people trying to enter Europe illegally. About 5,500 would-be immigrants were arrested between January and May while attempting to reach Spain from Morocco.
Spanish police seized 1.5 tonnes of hashish from a lorry in the southern port of Almeria, which had just arrived from Morocco. The drugs were split into 70 blocks in a hidden compartment. Their value was estimated at €2.28 million. The two people in the lorry were arrested.