The ship that stopped 7,000 migrants, and smuggled 700,000 cigarettes

During an inspection of the ship on the day it returned home, Italy’s financial police found about 700,000 contraband cigarettes and several boxes of Cialis, a medication for erectile dysfunction.

By the time the Caprera, a small gray Italian warship, returned to its base in southern Italy in July 2018, it had helped intercept more than 80 migrant smuggling boats off the coast of Libya, and stopped more than 7,000 people from reaching Europe.

For this work, the Caprera won the praise of Italy’s then interior minister, Matteo Salvini, an anti-migrant nationalist, who lauded the ship for “defending our security,” as he wrote on social media. “Honor!”
There was just one problem: The Caprera was itself smuggling contraband to Europe.

During an inspection of the ship on the day it returned home, Italy’s financial police found about 700,000 contraband cigarettes and several boxes of Cialis, a medication for erectile dysfunction. All the contraband was bought when the Caprera was moored in Tripoli from March to July 2018 as part of an anti-people-smuggling mission by the Italian navy.

https://indianexpress.com/article/world/the-ship-that-stopped-7000-migrants-and-smuggled-700000-cigarettes-6633650/