Officers of the Policía Nacional and officials of the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency, in collaboration with the British National Crime Agency, have dismantled a drug trafficking organisation, arresting ten people and seizing a tonne and a half of hashish. It was allegedly led by a former British serviceman. Two of the arrests were made in the Málaga town of Manilva.
In a statement, the police explain that the organisation was led by a long-standing British drug trafficker and that the investigation was coordinated by the Anti-Drug Prosecutor’s Office of the Campo de Gibraltar.
The operation was carried out last week, with ten people arrested in the autonomous city of Ceuta and in the provinces of Cádiz and Málaga.
A sailing boat and two yachts seized
In the searches carried out, officers seized more than €5,800 in cash, an imitation pistol, a Taser, bladed weapons and a drone, as well as five high-end vehicles and three vessels, specifically a sailing boat and two yachts.
The investigation began in 2020 and focused on a British national, resident in a luxury housing development in Cádiz, who was involved in transporting hashish by sea.
This man, a former member of the British Royal Navy with extensive nautical knowledge, had been known to officers for years because of his close links to international drug trafficking and his ties to criminal organisations based in European countries such as the United Kingdom and Ukraine, territories likely to be the recipients of the narcotic substance.
He had several companies dedicated to the buying, selling and hiring of boats, which he used to carry out drug shipments. He also created front companies to introduce money from drug trafficking into the legal economy.
Following the initial investigations, officers were able to confirm the suspect’s relationship with various individuals based in Ceuta, members of the criminal organisation supplying the hashish, with whom he organised drug shipments using sailing boats and pleasure craft.
During the investigation, officers noted the high degree of professionalism of the organisation, whose members adopted strict security measures, both in their communications and whenever they travelled.
This control was stepped up when they held the meetings at which they planned the criminal acts, meetings which those arrested attended using private boats, sometimes travelling several times in a single day.
In this way they tried to avoid public transport, avoiding leaving a trace of their personal details with transport companies.
The first phase of the investigation took place in August 2020, when the criminal organisation was preparing a drug shipment aboard a vessel, which was seized in the marina of Ceuta with almost 600 kilos of hashish.
Three months later, those under investigation planned a new shipment of narcotics using a pleasure boat, which was intercepted in the marina of Sotogrande, in San Roque (Cádiz), loaded with a tonne of hashish.
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