A district court delivered a verdict in a sprawling case tied to a drug-smuggling network based in Alicante. The judgment nets a combined prison term approaching three and a half decades for eight defendants who played roles in a ring that moved marijuana and hashish across multiple European destinations. The court simulated the shipment of footwear from Alicante to countries including Sweden and Italy to illustrate how the shipments were disguised. Under the recent sentences from the Tenth Circuit, six defendants will serve four years and six months, one will receive a five-year term, and another will face eight months in prison. A separate court in the Valencian Community confirmed the same verdicts.
The defendants were also fined a total of 395,000 euros, a sum corresponding to the value of the narcotics seized. The Alicante National Police reported seizures totaling 286 kilos of marijuana and hashish as part of the operation.
The court also acquitted seven defendants who had defended themselves in this case. Their lawyers included Roberto Sánchez Martínez, Sara Cabezas Campos, Aitor Esteban Gallastegui, Evaristo Llanos, Moisés Candela Sabater, Mari Paz Alarcón, and Juan Carlos Fuentes. The court concluded that the active participation of these acquitted individuals had not been sufficiently demonstrated. During the hearing, prosecutors had requested a combined 121 years in prison for 15 defendants.
The court likewise accepted the acquittal of 15 defendants on charges of electricity smuggling. The prosecution had alleged possession of a prohibited weapon and cleared the defendants in that count. The decision notes that one registered chalet showed a hidden connection to the electricity grid, which had been disconnected at the time of inspection. The court found that the energy consumption linked to the connection and the age of the installation could not be economically determined.
criminal network
The judgment states as proven facts that some defendants agreed in 2018 to form a criminal network dedicated to sending packages containing marijuana and hashish to various European countries. Packages were dispatched through shipping companies that pretended to handle shoe shipments, while a separate replenishment entity presented itself as the organizer of the operations. The shipments involved goods moving under the guise of legitimate commerce.
Police sources describe the network as being led, allegedly, by a figure known as Torcha. He was sentenced to four and a half years in Alicante and was linked to a series of estates, chalets, warehouses, and farms where cannabis was cultivated, packaged, and readied for dispatch.
In December 2018, the National Police in Alicante detected suspicious activity by a company suspected of drug smuggling. The same company had already shipped 81 pallets from Alicante to Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and Italy between April and November of that year.
Investigators from the Drug and Organized Crime Unit (UDYCO) reported that on December 12 the company under investigation left two pallets at a transport company in Riba-roja de Túria, Valencia, destined for Skogas in Sweden, while two more pallets were sent from Barcelona to Hamburg in Germany. The shipments appeared to be footwear, yet police discovered more than 106 kilos of marijuana inside. GPS beacons were discovered within the packages to track the movement of the drugs.
A subsequent operation on December 13 involved a minibus traveling from the Agost warehouse to a transport company in Alicante, where pallets intended for Italy were unloaded. Five pallets were located at the destination facility, containing an additional 123 kilograms of cannabis and hashish, along with tracking beacons.
As a consequence of these seizures, arrests and searches were carried out in Alicante and Agost. Police also uncovered an array of items commonly used in marijuana cultivation, including transformers and lamps, at a warehouse in Agost and at a residence in Canada del Fenollar. The authorities documented 1,692 cannabis cultivation sites within the underground network, and the collected plant material weighed approximately 57.5 kilograms.
The court also rejected a number of petitions for annulment raised by the defense, including challenges to house entries and searches conducted by police with authorization from the Instruction Court No. 4 of Alicante.