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

• Six people arrested thanks to the coordination of air-naval and land resources deployed by Customs Surveillance, National Police and Civil Guard
• The traffickers were surprised in the middle of the night by the Tax Agency patrol boat 'Arao' when they were trying to store in the port on the Alicante coast.

July 24, 2020 .- Customs Surveillance officials of the Tax Agency and agents of the National Police and Civil Guard, within the framework of the joint operation 'Hollín', have prevented the introduction into national territory of a stash of 4,380 kilos of hashish. The shipment was traveling on a Spanish-flagged yacht that was intercepted by the Tax Agency patrol boat 'Arao' just when the traffickers were preparing to store the drugs in the Calpe marina (Alicante).

As a result of the coordination of the air-naval and land resources arranged by the three bodies, the seizure of the drugs has been accompanied by the arrest of six members of the organization, including the two crew members of the boat and four other people who were waiting on land to the download.

The operation began last March, after preliminary investigations by the Alicante Customs Surveillance Operational Unit in the area around the province's nautical facilities, where investigators detected the presence of a yacht-type vessel, flying the Spanish flag, whose crew raised suspicions to investigators.

Once the investigation was focused and the vessel and crew became a target, the coordination of information through CITCO, the Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime, allowed the data obtained until then to be shared with that held by the security units. Civil Guard and National Police, who in turn were also analyzing these people.

From this moment on, the control and surveillance of the objectives is permanent in the different ports that the crew frequented with their pleasure yacht.

Boarding and arrests

Events precipitated last week in one of the port departures, given that the behavior of the crew members indicated that they were already ready to pick up the cargo in the open sea. The operation is then activated, with a wide deployment of air-naval and land resources so as not to lose details of the yacht's movements and contacts.

Given the poor state of the sea, during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday it was decided to keep on the lookout, and in constant monitoring of the objective, the means provided by the Tax Agency, the patrol boat 'Arao', the Argos II helicopter, based in Almería, and the Customs Surveillance plane based in San Javier (Murcia).

Finally, the Árao' surprises the crew of the yacht around four in the morning on Wednesday, when they were already heading to the Puerto Blanco marina, Calpe, carrying out their boarding to prevent the delivery of the drugs to the rest of the organization. , who was waiting on the ground with a large van.

The yacht tried to get away from the patrol boat, but its efforts were in vain, they were quickly neutralized by the Árao's prey crew, who in the assault itself already encountered the enormous amount of burlap bundles that were traveling on board the boat. smuggler.

While the Customs Surveillance officials detained the two crew members of the yacht, the four members of the criminal organization who were waiting with the van, began to flee, quickly aborted with their arrest thanks to the police deployment on land arranged by the Civil Guard, National Police and Customs Surveillance.

Once the objectives were neutralized and the cargo secured, the 'Arao' returned to its base in Alicante with the vessel seized and its two crew members detained, while the remaining four remained in the custody of the police units that acted on land.

Subsequently, on Wednesday afternoon, a commission from the Court of Investigation on duty in Alicante appeared on board the intervened yacht, with the presence of its skipper, one of the detained persons, to carry out the search, recording 134 bales of hashish weighing 4,380 kilos. Simultaneously, a search of a home related to one of the detainees in the van was carried out in Calpe. The detainees and the procedures carried out will be at the disposal of the Court of Instruction number 2 of Denia, on guard duty.

The Combined Customs Surveillance Unit of the Tax Agency in Alicante, the EDOA team of the Civil Guard of the Alicante Command, the UDYCO group of the National Police also from Alicante, and the National Police Narcotics Group in Elche.

Filming of operation (to download the videos you must enter the following web address): https://we.tl/t-H8CQu57xiU