Joint operation of the Tax Agency, National Police and Civil Guard

• The operation - part of the plan to combat drug trafficking in Campo de Gibraltar - was carried out in Barcelona, Algeciras (Cádiz) and El Ejido (Almería), and ended with the arrest of eight people.
• The modus operandi used by the organization consisted of buying industrial machines in Peru, where several people with mechanical knowledge fitted hidden compartments to hide the drugs, and then sending them to Spain by sea.

October 19, 2022.- Customs Surveillance officials of the Tax Agency, in a joint operation between the National Police and the Civil Guard, and with the collaboration of the Peruvian authorities, have seized more than 66 kilos of cocaine that were going to be introduced into Spain hidden inside industrial machinery. The operation - part of the plan to combat drug trafficking in Campo de Gibraltar - was carried out in Barcelona, Algeciras (Cádiz) and Almería, and ended with the arrest of eight people in Sabadell (six), Barcelona (one) and El Ejido (one). The modus operandi used by the organization consisted of buying industrial machines in Peru, where several people with mechanical knowledge fitted hidden compartments to hide the drugs, and then sending them to Spain by sea.

The investigation began, thanks to international police cooperation, when Peruvian authorities informed agents of the existence of a criminal organization based in Peru and Spain. The information provided referred to an organization specialized in the export of large quantities of cocaine hidden inside large-tonnage roller machines, via maritime containers.

'Modus Operandi'

Police investigations revealed that the criminal group under investigation purchased industrial machinery in Peru to transport it to warehouses where several people with mechanical knowledge created hidden compartments inside the warehouses in order to hide the narcotic substance and make it difficult for the police authorities to locate it. Once the drugs had been concealed, the machines were exported in containers by sea to Spain.

At the beginning of April, agents detected the arrival at the port of Algeciras of a container suspected of concealing a significant quantity of cocaine inside industrial machinery. Investigators found that the container was carrying four heavy-duty rolling machines and, after inspecting them thoroughly, discovered that they had been subtly modified around the base area and welded back together with a sheet of steel. A few days later, the container left Algeciras on board a ship bound for the port of Valencia, where it remained for several days without making any movement in order to prevent it from being linked to the container transporting the drugs.

Caught red-handed while extracting cocaine

Finally, in mid-May, the agents detected how the container left Valencia on board a truck to head towards Barcelona, specifically to an apparently abandoned property located in the municipality of Sabadell. There they observed several individuals who, using a forklift, lowered the four rolling machines and introduced them into a warehouse where they began to manipulate them.

Thanks to a joint operation by the Tax Agency's Customs Surveillance Service, the National Police and the Civil Guard, the members of the organization were caught when they began the process of extracting the cocaine. For this reason, the agents arrested the six people who were there and seized 61 cocaine pills - found when dismantling the steel sheets at the base of the machines - which weighed approximately 66 kilos of the drug.

Investigators continued their search to identify and locate the persons behind the import of the goods and who had covered the costs and paperwork involved. In this regard, last September the agents arrested two other people related to the events investigated in Barcelona and El Ejido (Almería). They also carried out three searches in Barcelona and the Almería municipalities of El Ejido and Roquetas de Mar.

This method of hiding cocaine in industrial machinery has been used on other occasions to try to introduce drugs into our country. In fact, this year, two other operations were carried out, unrelated to this one, in which the drug concealment system was similar. In one of them, 620 kilos of cocaine were seized in the port of Barcelona hidden in a 12-ton rotor, and in the other, 464 kilos of cocaine were discovered hidden in an eleven-ton shredding machine. In both cases, the use of heavy industrial machinery was necessary to extract the drugs.