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'La Modelo', queen of cocaine on the Costa del Sol, sentenced to five years in prison
Crime

'La Modelo', queen of cocaine on the Costa del Sol, sentenced to five years in prison

Although she initially faced up to ten years in prison, a plea bargain has reduced the sentence

Friday, 31 January 2025, 09:55

María Teresa, more famously known as 'La Modelo' - one of the big cocaine trafficking bosses on the Costa del Sol - has been sentenced to five years in prison. Her crimes were classified as a threat to public health and membership in a criminal organization. The prosecution reached an agreement, according to which María Teresa admitted to being the leader of an organisation responsible for the transport of narcotic substances from Marbella to places in Eastern and Northern Europe, in exchange for a lower sentence. The plea bargain has decreased the sentence from 10 to 5 years.

'La Modelo' has already served two and a half years, as she has been in custody since her arrest, her lawyer, Manuel Montaño Monge, told SUR.

The other eight members of the gang that have been accused have been charged for the same crimes, after also confessing their participation in the acts. They have received sentences of around three years in prison, with the exception of one of them, who has been sentenced to twelve years.

María Teresa lived in a villa in the luxury residential area of Valdeolletas, in the centre of Marbella. According to the sentence, the villa had a cadastral value of more than one million euros, with very high maintenance, water and electricity costs. There, the cocaine queen enjoyed swimming pools and gardens of more than 3,000 square metres despite having no accredited work activity.

Police investigations and surveillance revealed that the suspect held frequent meetings in Marbella with Polish nationals - also convicted - between the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, with the aim of processing, distributing and organising the transportation of different types of drugs. She also held meetings with a Danish national and three Spanish nationals to sell substances in the provinces of Murcia and Alicante.

On the morning of 29 January 2022, two of the convicted partners of the gang travelled to the town of Osuna (Seville) in two different vehicles. Once they had loaded the packages into a van and "taken all kinds of precautions", they drove to the farm in Coín, which was being used by the defendants. Two days later, the investigators detected a car leaving Rincón de la Victoria "in a suspicious and hurried manner", with two other defendants heading for a development in Benahavís, where another member of the gang lived. There, they carried out an "anomalous operation", which involved transferring bags from one vehicle to another. The vehicle had been scheduled to travel to Coín.

Once investigators confirmed reasonable evidence that narcotic substances were being stored in the property - leased for twelve months under a false identity- for later transport and sale, they requested the necessary judicial authorisations to enter and search the defendants' residences.

With the authorisation granted, officers seized various quantities of drugs, including a 200-kilo shipment of marijuana buds bound for Norway, along with a handgun, cryptocurrency and several vehicles. Among different quantities of cannabis resin, the most notable finding at the 'La Modelo' house was a Rolls-Royce-branded package, which contained cocaine, weighing 977.20 grammes, worth 103,086 euros.

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surinenglish 'La Modelo', queen of cocaine on the Costa del Sol, sentenced to five years in prison