Italian warship deployed to stop migrants, found to have smuggled cigarettes and Cialis

NYT:

“I felt like Dante descending into the inferno,” said Lt. Col. Gabriele Gargano, the police officer who led the raid and a subsequent investigation. “I’ve seen many smuggling busts — but 70 sacks of cigarettes on a military vessel? I never saw that in my whole life.”

The bust has tarnished what European leaders have portrayed as a tough-minded, but principled, effort to curb migration to the continent.

...

Even before its sailors began smuggling contraband, the Caprera had apparently violated the terms of a United Nations arms embargo on at least three occasions, according to the documents. The embargo bars foreign actors from supplying arms to any faction involved in the Libyan civil war and repairing military equipment.

The investigation has spread to a second and third ship.