A joint operation by the Tax Agency and the Guardia Civil

• 4.5 million packs and 31 tons of tobacco leaves and cuts have been seized, as well as machinery and precursors for the production of the packs.
• 16 people arrested after five searches carried out in different warehouses in Navarra and the Basque Country where cigarettes were illegally manufactured for the European market
• With all the criminal activity, the dismantled criminal group would have obtained economic benefits estimated at close to 80 million euros.
• With 12-hour days and poor health conditions, the organization was capable of producing one million cigarettes a day, accounting for more than 14 million packs manufactured in the last months of activity and until their dismantling thanks to police action.

December 14, 2022 .- The Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency and the Civil Guard of Navarra, with the support of the Central Operational Unit (UCO), have completed the operation ' Baserría/Trampantojo' that has led to the dismantling of what is considered the largest manufacturing and distribution network of smuggled tobacco dismantled to date in Europe.

The start of the operation took place after investigators obtained information about activities of a suspicious nature that were taking place in several agricultural and livestock farms located in different areas of the Pamplona Basin and the Northern Region of Aralar, in Navarra.

From all the investigations carried out, signs of criminal activities were extracted, which is why surveillance devices were established over these areas.

During the course of the investigation, the agents discreetly followed up on the owners, as well as some of the workers on the agricultural and livestock farms.

It was found that these people took strong security measures to avoid being discovered. From the surveillance exercised on these people, it was learned that they held meetings in restaurants with different truck drivers; Subsequently, they were guided to warehouses located in industrial estates in Navarra and the Basque Country, where they loaded and unloaded palletized and stored products. The researchers presumed that it could be a tobacco leaf for subsequent manipulation and transformation into the final product, simulating tobacco from different commercial brands commonly used both in Spain and other European countries, with the corresponding label in each language.

International cooperation

During the investigation, there was support from EUROPOL for the exchange of information with the countries of origin and transit of the raw materials necessary for the manufacture of tobacco in Spain, more specifically in the Foral Community of Navarra, where the work of cigarette manufacturing in a clandestine factory, camouflaged in a warehouse corresponding to an agricultural farm. 

The operation

After locating a large infrastructure installed and segmented in Navarra and the Basque Country dedicated to the production of tobacco cigarettes, the Judicial Authority was requested to enter and register the clandestine factories.

In Spain, five entries and searches were carried out in clandestine buildings located in the two autonomous communities, where more than three million packs of tobacco, more than 27 tons of tobacco leaves and more than 3 tons of cut tobacco were seized, as well as machinery and equipment. precursors for the production of packs.

Once the material was seized, the alleged perpetrators of the illegal activity were arrested. In total, 16 people have been arrested (six Spanish nationals, seven Ukrainians and three Bulgarians). They are considered alleged perpetrators of seven crimes (smuggling, membership in a criminal group, crime against workers' rights, crime against industrial property, crime against public finances, human trafficking and crime against public health).

It is also worth highlighting, during the course of the operation, the arrest of a truck driver who was transporting 7.2 tons of tobacco already manufactured and stored in cartons of ten packs ready for sale, equivalent to 300,000 packs, which, together with those seized in The Navarra factory and other points add up to a total of 4.5 million packs.

Production capacity and assets derived from illicit activity

Inside the Larraun-Aldatz (Navarra) warehouse, the book-records of the clandestine factory's activity were seized, in which it is observed, due to the production of packs, that it had a high level of activity. In the months prior to the police action and until its completion, a total of 14,421,000 packs of tobacco were produced, according to the audited accounts. It is estimated that the factory's production capacity would be 3,175,000 packs per month, around one million cigarettes per day.

From the illicit activity of tobacco production and distribution, the criminal group would have obtained economic benefits of almost 80 million euros.

Long work hours and poor sanitation conditions

Seven workers of Ukrainian nationality were located in the tobacco manufacturing workshop located in Navarra. Inside the ship, the ringleaders of the plot had built a secondary ship, which would form a kind of chest, which contained all the framework corresponding to the clandestine factory and which they had hidden with straw so that from the outside it would appear to be completely occupied by this product. The access area inside was hidden by an area dedicated to carpentry and agricultural equipment, all of which had to be moved with lifting machinery to make way for a sliding door. In this way, the aim was to avoid detection of the manufacturing workshop in a possible inspection.

The workers stayed and carried out their activity in the secondary interior warehouse that was used as precarious accommodation. The ship had been built as a large hermetic box, it had all the secondary exits blocked and only one exit enabled, but closed with an external padlock.

The working conditions included daily work days of between ten and twelve hours on average, and the workers did not leave the warehouse at any time of the day. One of the leaders was in charge of making the purchase that the Ukrainian workers themselves requested.

In addition, prevention regulations regarding occupational risks were violated; that is, obstruction of access to the outside, lack of ventilation, gas emissions due to combustion, exposed cables with obvious risk of causing a short circuit, and fundamentally the absence of escape routes in the event of any type of fire or accident, which had very high risk of occurring due to the type of activity carried out. These seven workers who were included in the proceedings as participants in the plot are free pending a judicial resolution.