The Guardia Civil, as part of Operation Mopa, has dismantled a network dedicated to trafficking hashish and marijuana. The network also supplied other criminal organisations with boats, fuel, food and crews. A hundred people have been arrested and 5,040 kilos of hashish and 230 kilos of marijuana buds have been seized. Officers also confiscated a simulated long firearm, a taser pistol and five vehicles, including two lorries, as well as navigation, computer and communications equipment and a large amount of documentation.
The investigation began when it emerged that an organisation was allegedly launching boats on the Guadalquivir river. The clan, known as MONPARLET, was also responsible for the logistics of hiding the high-speed boats.
Officers found that the organisation under investigation was also allegedly launching boats between the Seville towns of Isla Mayor and Puebla del Río, an area of marshland that is therefore difficult to reach by land. In addition, several warehouses were located on industrial estates on the outskirts of Seville, which they used to hide the boats while repair and maintenance work was carried out.
One branch of the organisation was dedicated to «petaqueo» (supplying fuel to the semi-rigid boats). These are very powerful boats with three or four engines that need a large amount of fuel. This branch had small leisure boats which set out from the ports of La Atunara and Sotogrande (both in the province of Cádiz) and Puerto de La Duquesa (Málaga) to supply fuel and food and, if necessary, to change crews so that the hashish run to Morocco could start again.
During the operation, officers seized 1,170 kilos of hashish in Matalascañas (Huelva), 3,240 kilos in Adra (Almería) and 330 kilos in La Línea (Cádiz), which highlights the powerful infrastructure the network had to carry out drug drops along all of Andalusia’s coasts. They transported the drug to Europe hidden in lorries carrying fruit. Another branch of the same organisation transported the drug brought into the peninsula on to Europe.
For this they used lorries that they kept hidden on an industrial estate in the Seville town of Dos Hermanas. They usually hid the drug among the fruit, alternating the hashish with consignments of marijuana. As a result of these investigations, seizures were made from these lorries: with the support of French Customs, 105 kilograms of marijuana were seized in Dax. In Spain, two more lorries were intercepted: one in Badajoz, where 300 kilos of hashish were seized, and another in Irún (Gipuzkoa), where 125 kilos of marijuana were found.
Leer esta noticia en español →
