The Brazilian Navy has seized a German 'pirate' sailing boat around 225 miles off its coast with three tonnes of hashish on board.

The footage shows the seized vessel after it was taken to port in Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia, on Sunday, November 12.

The Brazilian authorities can be seen removing large packages of cannabis from the vessel, with images showing how it was so packed with the drugs that the whole cabin was stuffed with them.

The vessel, originally registered in Germany and named as the Thiassi, was reportedly seized 363 kilometres (225 miles) from Salvador, with four Brazilian nationals arrested.

The vessel had reportedly recently been deregistered and was therefore considered to be a 'pirate' vessel, according to the authorities.

The suspects, who have not been named, reportedly told the police that Bahia was the boat's final destination after it left Portugal and sailed to the Canary Islands.

Three of the suspects were reportedly from Rio de Janeiro, with a fourth from Ceara.

The Brazilian Federal Police said: 'They were people hired just to transport drugs from Europe to Brazil.

'They left Brazil a month or two months ago, went by plane to Europe and from there they would return with the task of transporting this sailing boat to Bahia.'

Police believe the drugs were loaded onto the vessel after stopping in the Canary Islands.

Cops said that they had received information from Europe about a vessel transporting drugs, which is how they made the bust.

They said that a number of inconsistencies made them suspicious about the boat, adding: 'They reported by radio that the vessel was from Poland and that the flag was from Portugal, and in fact they had two flags on the mast: one from Spain and the other from Belgium.'

The police are investigating the incident in order to clarify where the drugs were set to be distributed to.

They added: 'We believe that this is part of a large drug trafficking connection linking Brazil and Europe.'