MADRID, Sept 30, 2008 (AFP) - Spanish police said Tuesday they had seized seven tonnes of hashish and arrested five suspects at two southern ports, the biggest such haul in the southern Andalusia region this year.

In the first operation, officers found one tonne of hashish divided into 36 packets on a boat in the port of Cadiz, on Spain's southern coast said a police statement.

That led them to the larger seizure on another ship, a few days later, of more than six tonnes of the drug, divided into 206 packets, in the nearby port of Sanlucar.

Officers had arrested five suspects, but the statement gave no details as to their nationality.

Police said it was the biggest seizure of hashish in the Andalusia region, which covers Spain's southern Atlantic and Mediterranean coastline, since the beginning of the year.

Spain is one of the main points of entry of drugs into Europe, from hashish that has been grown in north Africa, to Latin American cocaine, which is often smuggled in via Africa.