A joint operation by the Tax Agency and the Guardia Civil

• Firefighters were called in to extract the drugs using special metal cutting tools.
• The organization introduced the machinery, coming from Colombia, through the port of Valencia and after a series of transfers it was intercepted in the town of Sueca.
• Three homes have been searched in Alicante and four people have been arrested as responsible for the events.

January 28, 2022 .- Customs Surveillance of the Tax Agency and the Civil Guard, in a joint operation, have seized 464 kilos of cocaine that were hidden inside an 11-ton crushing machine that arrived at the port of Valencia and that had as its declared destination a company domiciled in Tres Cantos (Madrid).

As part of the operation, three homes were searched in Alicante and four people were arrested as responsible for the events, one of them an Argentine national and the other three Spanish. The extraction of the drugs from the machinery has been carried out with great difficulty over the last few days, to the point of requiring specialized equipment, given the characteristics of the concealment system and the weight of the machinery.

The proceedings were initiated as a result of a request for international collaboration issued by the Colombian National Police and the Colombian Prosecutor's Office (National Specialized Prosecutor's Office against Drug Trafficking) for the execution of an international controlled delivery requested from the Anti-Drug Prosecutor's Office of the Spanish National Court, which led the first phases of the investigation. The operation also included the cooperation of the National Directorate for Drug Control of the Dominican Republic.

According to additional information received, once the drugs were hidden inside industrial machinery, they were transported from the Cali area (Colombia) to the port of Santa Marta in the same country. There it would be placed in a maritime container and dispatched for export to the port of Valencia. A criminal group made up of Spanish citizens with ties to Colombia is said to be responsible for organising the export of the container with the machinery already contaminated with cocaine hidden inside.

As a result of the investigations carried out and prior to the arrival of the container in Spain, investigators had managed to identify the main leaders of the criminal organisation established in the Valencian Community, the alleged recipients of the drugs, and several warehouses linked to companies controlled by the organisation, which could be the destination of the container once it reaches Spanish territory.

Container interception, searches and arrests

After the container left the port of Valencia, Customs Surveillance officers and Civil Guard agents arranged a controlled delivery authorized by the Special Anti-Drug Prosecutor's Office of the National Court.

The container was transported to a warehouse located in Silla (Valencia), where the organization unloaded its contents. The machinery was then reloaded onto a new vehicle which transported it to a warehouse located in La Nucía (Alicante). The organization carried out a new transfer to another vehicle, which transported the merchandise to the place where the operational actions were finally carried out: a warehouse located in the town of Sueca (Valencia). All these transfers created additional difficulties for the investigators to complete the monitoring successfully and without the organization noticing their presence.

Two people who were waiting to receive the machinery were arrested at the Sueca warehouse. A total of 14 metal cylinders were then removed from the industrial apparatus, an 11-tonne crushing machine. The drugs were found inside the cylinders, and a local fire brigade unit was called in to extract them. This work continued throughout the day and the following day, given the complexity of the operation. The cylinders were finally transferred to the Valencia Customs facilities for storage, safekeeping and subsequent expert analysis.

Once it was confirmed that the substance hidden inside the cylinders was cocaine, three house searches were carried out, resulting in the arrest of two other people, who were already under surveillance, as top leaders of the criminal organisation. In addition, three vehicles, a van, cash, a drone, two mobile phones and various computer equipment were seized.

The detainees were brought before Valencia's 12th Court of Instruction. Three of them were remanded in custody. The fourth was released with a ban on leaving the country.

Recent precedent in Lleida

This method of hiding cocaine in industrial machinery has been used on other occasions to try to introduce drugs into our country. In fact, very recently the Tax Agency and the Civil Guard carried out another operation, unrelated to the present one, in which the system of concealing the drugs was similar. At the beginning of the year, 620 kilos of cocaine were seized in the port of Barcelona, hidden in a 12-ton rotor. The Risk Analysis Unit of Barcelona Customs detected possible anomalies in the shipment destined for Lleida. After being opened using heavy industrial machinery, 537 packages of cocaine were found inside the rotor cylinder, the market value of which is estimated to be around 20 million euros.