Joint operation of the Tax Agency and the National Police

• A total of 16 people have been arrested in Alicante, Barcelona, Malaga and Murcia, some of whom had previously been convicted of violent crimes committed in Poland.
• The dismantled group contacted in Spain a woman known for her links to international cocaine trafficking, with whom they tried to establish a line for shipping narcotics by air from Colombia to the Netherlands.
• During the investigation, a shipment of 200 kilograms of marijuana destined for the Scandinavian countries was seized, allowing the arrest of five people.

October 8, 2022.- Customs Surveillance Officials of the Tax Agency, in a joint operation with agents of the National Police, have dismantled a Polish-Danish criminal organization allegedly dedicated to trafficking drugs from Spain to the rest of Europe. A total of 16 people have been arrested in the Malaga towns of Alhaurín de la Torre, Fuengirola, Marbella and Málaga, in the Murcian municipalities of Los Alcázares, Mazarrón and Murcia, in the Barcelona towns of Premiá de Dalt and Barcelona, and in the Alicante population of Orihuela.

The investigations began during the summer of 2020, when the agents received confidential information that warned about a woman of Colombian origin who had lived for decades in Marbella, and who would be preparing a significant shipment of cocaine from South America to Spain. This woman, who enjoyed a high standard of living, lived in a mansion of more than 3,000 square meters valued at about three million euros.

Due to her high economic capacity and the relationships she had in the past with important national and foreign criminals, the investigation focused on her with the aim of gathering evidence not only of activity related to drug trafficking, but also to money laundering. of capital that could derive from the crimes against public health that were being investigated. These police efforts linked the person under investigation with a man of German nationality who was convicted in 2014 of smuggling 200 kilos of cocaine into Denmark, and who was currently part of a Polish organization based in Spain, specialized in sending large quantities of cocaine. narcotics by road from Spain to the Nordic and Central European countries, shipments having been identified to Germany, Poland, Norway and Denmark, among others.

The leader of the group had an extensive criminal record

The organization was made up of Polish citizens. Some of them had a history in their country of origin for having belonged to different criminal groups dedicated to drug trafficking and that used violence in their criminal activity.

At the head of this organization was a Danish citizen living in Barcelona. This individual had an extensive criminal record in his country of origin, which is why he was in the crosshairs of the Danish police authority. Furthermore, his illicit assets, hidden behind a complex business network, were investigated by both the Spanish and Danish authorities.

In the more than two years that the investigation has lasted, evidence was collected about a shipment of cocaine by air that those investigated had prepared at the end of 2020. For this shipment, the person under investigation would have received a significant amount of cash as an advance.

In 2021, Customs Surveillance officials of the Tax Agency in Madrid and agents of the National Police located three people dedicated to cocaine trafficking in Murcia and Alicante. Her supplier turned out to be one of the contacts of the woman under investigation.

That same year, a drug deal was detected in a London pub. This action had been coordinated by an investigator of British origin who was in Malaga, who sent a subordinate with the drugs to carry out the arrangements with the client.  This information, sent through the National Crime Agency of the United Kingdom, made it possible to alert the London Metropolitan Police, who arrested two people when they were exchanging one kilo of cocaine and five kilos of marijuana.

In February 2022, a shipment of 200 kilos of marijuana buds that were destined for Norway was seized. In this operation, four members of the Polish organization were arrested, just as they were preparing the shipment on a farm in the province of Malaga.

A weapon and a cryptocurrency were seized, as well as various drugs

Through international police coordination mechanisms, it was learned that the Danish authorities confirmed that the Danish citizen was behind the shipment of 40 kilos of cocaine received from Barcelona in mid-2020, initiating police cooperation aimed at ensuring that this individual was tried in both Spain and Denmark for his crimes.

As a result of the final exploitation, eleven people were arrested. In the searches carried out, among other products, a short gun, more than a kilo of cocaine, more than one and a half kilos of hashish, a crypto wallet and various vehicles were seized.