Madrid - Spanish police said Friday they had foiled an elaborate bid by an Italian drug trafficker to break out of jail that involved the use of a remote-controlled zeppelin with the arrest of three people.

The three planned to use a four-metre (13-foot) long zeppelin to deliver night vision goggles, climbing gear and camouflage paint to the inmate which he would then use to escape the prison in Las Palmas on Spain's Canary Islands, they said in a statement.

The material would then be used by the prisoner, identified only as 51-year-old Giulio B., to scale down the prison wall at night at a little supervised spot where a car would be waiting to whisk him away from the jail.

"He would be transported to a foreign country where he would hide out while he waited for false identity documents and would continue to oversee the shipment of drugs to our country," the statement said.

One of the three people detained had observed the security measures in place at the prison from a camouflaged tent set up on a hill some 600 metres (yards) away from the jail to help develop the escape plan.

Motion detection sensors had been set up around the tent to warn if anyone was approaching the observation site.

The inmate was detained in Spain at an undisclosed date when he piloted a hydroplane that was transporting 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of cocaine from Mauritania in northwest Africa to Spain.

Spain is Europe's main entry point for cocaine from South America, mostly from its former colony Colombia, although much of it is now transported via west Africa.

AFP / Expatica