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ÁLVARO FRÍAS / JUAN CANO
Wednesday, 8 December 2021, 11:30
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Drug traffickers were taken by surprise when police caught them red-handed while unloading hashish from a boat on a Mijas beach. They tried to escape, as best they could, but some were caught, while the boat fled the scene.
Guardia Civil officers saw several men running down the beach and they followed their wet footprints into bushes. There, they found two people who, in a desperate attempt not to be arrested, claimed that they had nothing to do with the incident and that they were there having sexual relations. But their alibi did not convince a Malaga court, which has found them guilty of drug trafficking.
The incident happened on the morning of 4 November 2020, when several people notified the Mijas Local Police and the Guardia Civil that drugs were being unloaded in the Sheriff beach area, at kilometre 202 of the A-7.
The eyewitnesses explained that packages were being unloaded from a boat into an Opel Vivaro van.
When police arrived on the scene the drug traffickers fled, but the officers located two of them hiding in bushes about a hundred metres away from the unloading point.
They were found three metres apart and their clothes were wet. The 38-year-old Cuban and the 22-year-old from the Dominican Republic were both arrested. Meanwhile a Mijas Local Police patrol located the van just three kilometres away and they arrested the driver, a 25-year-old Spanish man, as well as the passenger, a 20-year-old, also Spanish.
Officers found that the van was carrying almost 1,560 kilos of hashish, with a black market price of more than two and a half million euros. Following inquiries, a 23-year-old Spanish woman, who had rented the vehicle, was also detained
In court, all admitted their involvement in the drug trafficking operation, apart from the pair found hiding in bushes who claimed that they were on the beach that morning having sexual relations. However, this claim was thrown out of court, in light of the Guardia Civil's evidence which included the wet footprints from the boat to where they were found.
The five defendants have all been found guilty of drug-trafficking crimes against public health. The two who were found hiding on the beach have been sentenced to three years and nine months in prison, as well as being slapped with a fine of 2.6 million euros.
The driver of the van and the passenger have been given three-year sentences and ordered to pay the same fine. The lightest sentence was for the young woman who rented the van, who has received a two-year prison sentence and a 1.3-million-euro fine.
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