Spain is coordinating a European apparatus against arms, drug trafficking and the smuggling of migrants and people during this month of November, the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced on Thursday. 566 people were arrested and it was also helpful to open this 163 new investigations.
As announced by Internal Affairs, the operational part of the police action took place between 13 and 18 November. More than 22,000 agencies from 26 countries, among them are those from outside the European Union, such as Albania, Moldova, Serbia or Ukraine. The operation also received the support of Europol.
Operational action ended 215,000 people were inspected, 2,200 people were found to have entered illegally 310 firearms were seized and approximately one ton of drugs, including 626 kilograms of cocaine, were seized.
Of the 566 people arrested Of these, 218 were for immigrant smuggling, 186 for drug smuggling, 69 for firearms smuggling and 89 for other crimes.
The operation also collaborated with European and international organizations such as Eurojust, Frontex and Interpol. European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats (EMPACT) promotes coordinated action by EU countries to combat the most serious international criminal threats.
Although the control center of the operation is here Skopje In a note, Internal Affairs states that (North Macedonia) is governed by Spain and all authorities are represented because the goal is to respond in a coordinated and urgent manner to the criminal threats presented.
In parallel, the national operation in Spain is managed from the control center established at the headquarters of the organization. Intelligence Center to Combat Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO), In Madrid, real-time information exchange was enabled with all participants and the center in Skopje.
The Spanish operation consists of: multidisciplinary team Among them were agents from the National Police, the Civil Guard and the Mossos d’Esquadra.
cyber patrol
In the operational phase, cyber patrol activities focusing on surveillance and investigation activities are also carried out on different websites and forums, as well as on different websites and forums. instant messaging and social networking applications, It aimed to detect illegal firearms trafficking and gather more information on identified targets.
This cyber patrol is carried out by experts. Bulgarian, Bosnian, Croatian, English, Russian, Serbian and Ukrainian languages. Agencies carry out these activities in coordination with the international coordination center.
Investigators detected during cyber patrol 120 targets 94 of those related to firearms smuggling are on a messaging application, while the rest are on different websites.