The National Police, together with officials from the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency, has dealt a severe blow to an Albanian organization that intended to smuggle over 4 tons of cocaine into Europe
This cocaine haul is the largest seizure in the province of Alicante to date. The National Police Force has seized 4,300 kilograms, valued at 175 million euros on the black market (the current price per kilogram is around 35,000 euros).
So far, there have been five arrests, four of them of Albanian origin and one Spanish. The investigation was carried out by the Anti-Drug and Organized Crime Unit (Udyco) of the National Police, under the coordination of an Alicante court and the Anti-Drug Prosecutor’s Office in Málaga, with the assistance of the Spanish Embassy in Albania.
According to sources involved in the investigation, the five detainees are allegedly linked to an Albanian drug trafficking network that intended to distribute the drugs in other European countries after storing them in the warehouse in Alicante.
The drugs were seized on Friday, June 23, during the Hogueras festival. The investigators were already tracking a container that had been detected in the port of Málaga. From the moment it disembarked in Spain, it was monitored by the Customs Surveillance Service.
While they were unloading the merchandise in the Llano del Espartal industrial estate, National Police officers entered the warehouse and caught the suspects red-handed. As they suspected, the agents discovered a spectacular stash of cocaine hidden among a shipment of bananas.
