Jan
6
Spanish police say they have seized three tonnes of cocaine and arrested 12 suspected drugs smugglers from Britain, the Netherlands and Spain.
El Pais newspaper quoted police sources as saying the drugs were due to be delivered to a crime gang based in the Costa del Sol region on Spain’s southeast coast.
A 41-year-old man from Kingston in Surrey and a man aged 50 from Thornbury in Gloucestershire were also held, along with two Spaniards and two Dutch men.
Police seized 700 kilos (1,500 pounds) of the drugs hidden in a false bottom of a van which collided with a police vehicle in the middle of the chase to catch the traffickers.
They said the operation represents “the largest drug seizure in Galicia since 1999”.
“Few organisations in Europe have the capacity today to transport three tonnes of cocaine”, Eloy Quiros, head of Udyco, Spain’s national Drug and Organised Crime unit, told a news conference.
Over the following weekend members of the British gang were seen meeting Spanish and Dutch subjects, who were tasked with collecting the initial 300kg.
Police swooped on a warehouse in Galicia, north west Spain, where the gang were about to load part of the stash into a secret compartment in the roof of a van. As is usual practice in Spain, the estimated street value of the drugs was not given.
Last month Spanish police discovered more than a tonne of cocaine disguised as wood and charcoal arriving on a shipment from Colombia. In the same month, they arrested Briton Robert Dawes at his luxury villa on the Costa del Sol over claims he was behind Europe’s largest drugs ring.
The Costa del Sol, once dubbed the “Costa del Crime” for the large number of British criminals who sought sanctuary there in the 1970s and 1980s, is still a popular location for criminals from Britain and around Europe.
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.