Operation of the Tax Agency, Civil Guard and National Police

• The detainees were part of a criminal organization based in different countries, responsible for the introduction and distribution of large shipments of cocaine into Europe from South America by sea.

• The drug seizures for which they are held responsible took place in the port of Bilbao in 2020 and in Algeciras between 2021 and 2022.

• Simultaneous searches have been carried out in the provinces of Madrid and Alicante in Spain, as well as in the Dutch city of Amsterdam.

December 30, 2023.- Customs Surveillance of the Tax Agency, in the joint operation 'Hammer-Bandi' with the National Police and Civil Guard, have carried out an operation directed against several members of an international criminal organization specialized in the introduction and distribution of cocaine in Europe, originating from South America.

In total, five people have been arrested, three in Spain and two in the Netherlands, for alleged crimes of drug trafficking, money laundering and membership in a criminal organisation.

Ports of Bilbao and Algeciras

The first of these seizures took place in the port of Bilbao in April 2020, in which 1,100 kilos of cocaine were seized in a maritime container from Ecuador, camouflaged inside a legal load of bananas.

This seizure, carried out by Customs Surveillance in the Basque Country in collaboration with the United States Customs Services, uncovered a major international criminal organization specializing in large-scale drug trafficking, which had designed a sophisticated system to evade customs controls. The network had created a network of legal companies that simultaneously introduced containers with legal merchandise with others with cocaine camouflaged in legal merchandise, or even in the structure of the containers themselves.

This arrest allowed Spanish agents to begin the operation, putting them on the trail of this important international criminal organization specialized in large-scale drug trafficking.

Fruit import companies for the introduction of cocaine

As the months went by, several fruit import companies were identified, created specifically to introduce large shipments of cocaine into Spain via maritime containers, all of them in Madrid.

A second seizure took place in September 2021, when the Customs Surveillance of the Basque Country and Andalusia, and the Special Response Group against Organized Crime of Campo de Gibraltar of the National Police, seized 1,152 kilos of cocaine in the port of Algeciras. In turn, a third seizure of 96 kilos took place in November 2022. All these interventions were managed and coordinated by the same criminal organization.

Analysis of encrypted communications

All the evidence gathered during the investigation was confirmed after an exhaustive analysis carried out for months by the UCO of the Civil Guard on the latest generation of encrypted chat systems, which were used by this organization in its communications with the sole objective of trying to evade police action on the drug trafficking operations carried out.

Based on this analysis, it has been possible to fully identify the top officials of this business network, located in different countries, who directly managed the introduction of these cocaine shipments into Spain from their shipment at origin.

At the end of November, the final phase of this operation was carried out, with a total of six house searches being carried out simultaneously; four of them between the provinces of Madrid and Alicante, and the remaining two in Holland. Five people were arrested, three in Spain and two in the Netherlands, all of them directly linked to the management of the seized cocaine shipments.

The detainees are charged with alleged drug trafficking, money laundering and membership in a criminal organisation, for the introduction of a total of 2,348 kilos of cocaine into Spain.

Arrests outside Europe

The collaboration between all police forces has been continuous and direct throughout the investigation, and has allowed the American authorities to arrest a prominent drug trafficker of Albanian origin residing in the United States. He is accused of running an extensive drug trafficking network that distributed cocaine in more than 15 countries, including Spain, and there is speculation that he may have been planning to build an "underwater drone" capable of autonomously transporting large quantities of cocaine between South America and Europe. This investigation in the USA coincides with the one carried out in Spain following the aforementioned seizure of cocaine in the port of Bilbao.

The operation was led in our country by the Central Court of Instruction No. 2 of the National Court and had the collaboration of the United States Customs Service, the Dutch Politei and the American anti-drug agency DEA.