Joint operation of the Tax Agency and National Police

• The organization had devised an ingenious cover for the transport of drugs, sending the caravan by boat with two kayaks and a bicycle rack with the idea of simulating a transfer to practice outdoor activities.

• After more than two years of waiting in South America due to the health restrictions caused by Covid-19, the motorhome with the narcotic hidden in a double bottom is sent to the port of Barcelona, where agents intercept the illicit merchandise

• Within the framework of the same actions, two members of the criminal organization have been arrested.

• The operation has been the result of more than two years of joint investigation by members of the Basque Country of the UDYCO of the National Police and the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency

• The drug would have reached a value of more than 60 million euros in the illicit retail market.

July 27, 2022.- Officials of the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency and agents of the National Police in the Basque Country, have seized 534 kilos of cocaine in the port of Barcelona that They were traveling camouflaged in a motorhome, as explained this Wednesday by the Government delegate in the Basque Country, Denis Itxaso. “The value of the drugs in the retail market,” said the delegate, “would have risen to more than 60 million euros and its main destination was Euskadi.”

The interception of this motorhome from South America that was carrying cocaine hidden in a false bottom occurred within the framework of a joint operation between officials of the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency and agents of the National Police in the Basque Country.

To introduce the narcotic into Spain, at the end of 2019 the organization had sent the caravan by boat with two kayaks and a bicycle rack with the idea of simulating a transfer to practice outdoor activities. More than two years later, and once the health restrictions caused by Covid-19 have been overcome, the vehicle is sent back to Spain, finally being intercepted in the port of Barcelona. Within the framework of the same actions, two members of the criminal organization have been arrested.

The Government delegate has presented the cache at the Complex that the National Police has in the town of Basauri accompanied by a person in charge of the Tax Agency and the senior chief of the National Police in Euskadi, the main commissioner Jesús Herranz. Itxaso has explained that the operation, called 'Keja-Ojo Salado', “is the result of a long, complex and laborious investigation carried out by the Drug and Organized Crime Unit (UDYCO) of the National Police Headquarters in the country. Basque and Customs Surveillance of the Tax Agency in the Basque Country. “The effectiveness of both bodies has allowed this seizure.” Customs Surveillance and the National Police have acted within the framework of their respective powers to combat illicit drug trafficking at an international level, to ensure the logistics chain of international trade and to prosecute smuggling crimes.

An ingenious transportation plan

As a result of international cooperation between the different Customs and the Police, at the end of 2019 the investigators learned of the preparations of a drug trafficking organization to introduce a significant amount of narcotics into the national territory.

The sophisticated strategy of the criminal organization involved the use of foreign trade channels to export a motorhome to a South American country, pretending that it was going to be used for outdoor activities. For this purpose, the vehicle had been equipped with two kayaks on top and a bicycle rack, thus trying to make it difficult to detect by Customs upon its subsequent return to the national territory.

While the members of the criminal organization traveled by plane to South America, the motorhome was transported on a ship that left Spain at the end of 2019.

In all likelihood, the organization's expectation was to return with the drug in a few months, but the pandemic caused by Covid-19, with the consequent closure of borders, stopped the operation in its tracks.

The criminal organization was patient, and possibly convinced that the strategy it had designed would be fruitful, it waited for the normalization of maritime transport to take the motorhome back to Spain by sea, two and a half years after starting its trip.

Drug seizure and arrests

During all that time, the UDYCO of the National Police of Bilbao and the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency in the Basque Country had, however, maintained tight control over the objectives of the investigation.

In this way, as soon as the motorhome was presented to Customs in the port of Barcelona, a joint team from both institutions proceeded to inspect it and discovered a hidden compartment that, in turn, hid a perfectly concealed double bottom that had been built in the underside of the vehicle and which contained 333 packages, weighing 534 kilos, of a substance that, once analyzed with the narco test, turned out to be highly pure cocaine.

Finally, and already in the executive phase of the operation, members of the GOES and UDYCO Unit of the Higher Headquarters of the Basque Country, together with Customs Surveillance officials of the Tax Agency in the Basque Country and Catalonia, proceeded to the arrest of two members of the organization and its immediate bringing to justice, currently keeping the police operation open.