Joint operation of the Tax Agency and the National Police

• They mainly produced cannabinoids, cathinones and opiates, all of them synthetic, which they later exported to North America, Oceania and European countries by parcel delivery.

• Three people from the same family who ran the laboratory have been arrested and among the material seized during shipments and in the home search, materials have been seized for the production of more than 7,500,000 doses of 'NSP' substances.

• The investigation, carried out within the framework of the UN GRIDS project, has had the collaboration of the US agencies DEA and CBP

October 5, 2023.- Customs Surveillance Officials of the Tax Agency, in a joint operation with agents of the National Police, have dismantled a laboratory for the manufacture of new psychoactive substances known as ' NSP'. They produced synthetic drugs from natural narcotic substances that were later exported to North America, Oceania and European countries by parcel delivery.

Three people from the same family who ran the laboratory have been arrested and among the material seized during shipments and during the search, materials for the production of more than 7,500,000 doses of 'NSP' substances such as the stimulant drug 'powder' have been seized. of mono', the synthetic cannabinoid ADB-BUTINACA and the synthetic canthinone a-PiHP. This is an investigation that has been carried out within the framework of the United Nations GRIDS project and in which the US agencies DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and CBP (Customs and Border Protection) have collaborated.

The investigation began at the beginning of March after learning that, from somewhere in the province of Barcelona, shipments of dangerous narcotic substances called 'NSP' were being carried out, both to the United States and to various European countries.

After various inquiries, it was possible to identify a member of the organization who made shipments from different parcel offices in Barcelona, so a surveillance service was set up to monitor his movements and shipments, and several of them were intercepted, both in Spain and in the United States. United States, where there was collaboration from the CBP and the DEA.

Ability to modify the effects of the drug on the user

This revealed that the organization was sending dangerous psychoactive substances, belonging to families as diverse as synthetic cathinones, synthetic opiates and synthetic cannabinoids. Among the latter, it has been possible to intervene: ADB-BUTINACA, ADB-FUBIACA, ADB-B-5BR-INACA, A-FUBIACA and JWC-210. These preparations are chemical substances with psychoactive effects that belong to the group of synthetic cannabinoids, which are produced through chemical synthesis and whose effects are intended to imitate or resemble those produced by cannabis. The chemical synthesis of these substances makes it possible to increase the potency of the effects produced by their consumption and also to expand or modify the type of effects on the consumer.

Once the movements of the organization and the shipments they made began to be controlled, it was possible to see how those shipments, despite having a very low weight, were of great economic value due to the difficulty of their preparation. They were being sent through a company that presented itself under various corporate names and whose headquarters were in Barcelona. This company, in turn, had accounts associated with a Hungarian company.

Continuing with the investigation of the objectives, after analyzing all the places that the members of the organization frequented, it was possible to discover the place where they resided and where they would have established the clandestine laboratory for manufacturing the 'NSP'. The laboratory was located in a house in the Barcelona town of Tagament, which provided a discreet and remote location in which to establish the clandestine laboratory.

During the investigation it was determined that two people of Hungarian nationality residing in Barcelona were behind the shipment of these substances.

At the end of July, and after monitoring his usual movements, the investigators managed to intercept the main investigator as he was going to a parcel office to send a consignment of boxes. This intervention made it possible to frustrate the shipment of four large packages containing a significant quantity of 'NPS' destined for Greece, the USA, Ireland and Italy.

After the arrest, an entry and search was carried out at a home where another member of the criminal organization, of Hungarian nationality and son of the principal, and a woman of Colombian nationality were located. In this way, the number of detainees for the events investigated was finally raised to three.

Inside the home, it was discovered how the organization had set up a sophisticated production and logistics dispatch system. Thus, the clandestine laboratory was arranged in a room, with different chemicals, solvents and precursors necessary to make the substances. They also had a packaging machine for the pills.

In another room they had a warehouse where they placed the already manufactured drugs, bagged in their marketing and dosage packages. There they had all the necessary supplies, bags, packages and final marketing screen printing. They arranged the substances on different shelves where they were classified as if it were a supermarket counter.

Virtual coins and gold bars at the register

In the same registry, in addition to tools for the preparation of the 'NSP', machinery and a multitude of tools for the synthesis of drugs, laboratory material and precursors were seized. In addition, 35,000 euros in cash, 1.8086 virtual currencies with a value of 52,635 euros, various gold ingots and computer material pending analysis were seized.

During the investigation, international cooperation with foreign police agencies (CBP, DEA, INCB), under the coordination of CITCO, has allowed the organization to be hit in different countries, seizing a large quantity of these dangerous psychoactive substances during the two years of laborious police investigation.

Mass shipments through parcel companies

This coordination allowed us to know the modus operandi and the details of the volume of shipments made by this organization. The method they used consisted of flooding the parcel systems of large logistics companies with low-value and low-weight shipments, which made their individualization and police control difficult.

Thus, only in the period between January 2020 and April 2020, taking into account a single logistics company used to send packages abroad, 704 shipments containing narcotic substances destined for Asia, the United States and Europe were intercepted.

Despite using different international parcel logistics companies, on many occasions they made repetitive or repeated shipments to the same postal addresses to make police action difficult.  In this way, between April and June 2022, a total of 136 shipments containing different substances such as ALPHA-PIHP, TH-PVP, BK-2C-B, and 4-FLUOROMETHYLPHENIDATE(4F-MPH) were seized in the United States. total weight of 67.4 kilos of dangerous new psychoactive substances.

Likewise, under the coordination of the UN INCB/INCB, it has been possible to manage the intervention of numerous packages with diverse destinations, since the organization sent not only to Europe (France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Poland, among others) but also to Australia and New Zealand, where its price is substantially higher, increasing its value by 200%.

Among the shipments intercepted before entering the third country market, one of 163 grams of MDPHP known as 'monkey dust' or 'cannibal drug' with powerful stimulant effects stands out, being ten times more powerful than cocaine as a psychostimulant, assuming this seizure of more than 160,000 consumer doses.

Another substance seized to highlight is α-PiHP, of which about 20 grams were seized, which would make about 7,000 doses of synthetic cathinone with psychostimulant effects more powerful than those of methamphetamine. On the other hand, among the seizures carried out from the criminal organization, it is worth highlighting synthetic cannabinoids such as ADB-BUTINACA among others, with 65 grams being seized with which 65,000 doses could be made for sale.

During the laboratory search, the agents were surprised by the large amount of narcotic substances ('NSP') that were both in the preparation phase and already prepared as a final product.

These types of substances vary in their form of administration (orally, smoked, snorted) and the number of doses consumed. The police action allowed the intervention of more than 7,500,000 consumer doses of these synthetic preparations, which would have reached the different illicit markets to which they were destined. Given the amount of substances involved, they are still being analyzed today.