Civil Guardin a joint operation with National Police and Customs Surveillancearrested Five people in Spain and the Netherlands For crimes of drug trafficking, money laundering and membership of a criminal organization and in connection with the intervention of more than one person 2 thousand 300 kilos of cocaine in Spain.
“This is the operation,” said the statement made by the General Directorate of Civil Security.Bandi Hammer‘ It was directed against several members of an international criminal organization that specialized in the shipment and distribution of large quantities of cocaine by sea from South America to Europe.
A total of five people were detained for the alleged crimes, three in Spain and two in the Netherlands. drug trafficking, money laundering and membership in a criminal organization.
The drug seizures for which they were responsible took place in the port of Bilbao in 2020 and in Algeciras between 2021 and 2022.
Inside 1,100 kilos of cocaine seized in Bilbao Camouflaged inside a legal cargo of bananas in a sea container from Ecuador. This revealed a major international criminal organization specializing in large-scale drug trafficking, which devised a complex system to evade customs controls.
The network had created a network of law firms that simultaneously released containers containing legal merchandise, cocaine camouflaged as legal merchandise, among others, and even other containers contained within the structure of the containers.
This arrest allowed Spanish agents to launch the operation and trace this incident. major international criminal organization specializes in large-scale drug trafficking.
As the months passed, it became possible to identify several fruit import companies, all based in Madrid, set up to deliver large shipments of cocaine via sea containers to Spain.
A second arrest took place in September 2021, when the Special Intervention Group Against Organized Crime of the Customs Surveillance of the Basque Country and Andalusia and the National Police Campo de Gibraltar seized 1,152 kilos of cocaine in the port of Algeciras.
In November 2022, 96 kilos were seized for the third time. All of these interventions were directed and coordinated by the same criminal organization.
encrypted chats
All evidence collected during the investigation was confirmed after some time. Comprehensive analysis conducted over many months by the Civil Guard UCO about the state-of-the-art encrypted chat systems used by this organization to avoid police intervention.
Thanks to this analysis, it was possible to identify those responsible for this business network, which is located in different countries and directly manages the entry of these cocaine shipments into Spain from the shipment of origin.
At the end of November, the final phase of this operation was carried out by searching six houses simultaneously; four are between the provinces of Madrid and Alicante, and the remaining two are in the capital of the Netherlands.
Five people were arrested, three in Spain and two in the Netherlands. directly linked to the management of seized cocaine shipments.
Those detained are accused of drug trafficking, money laundering and membership in a criminal organization due to the smuggling of a total of 2,348 kilograms of cocaine into Spain.
Additionally, cooperation between all police forces allowed North American authorities to arrest one individual. Well-known drug trafficker of Albanian origin residing in the USA.
He is accused of running a vast drug trafficking network that distributed cocaine in more than 15 countries, including Spain, and it is being considered that he may have planned to build an “underwater drone” capable of transporting large quantities autonomously. Cocaine trade between South America and Europe.
The operation was led by the Central Instruction Court No. 2 of the National Court and carried out in cooperation with the US Customs Service, Dutch Politei and the US anti-drug agency DEA.