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Europa Press
Malaga
Friday, 7 February 2025, 13:00
In a joint operation involving the French National Gendarmerie, Europol and Eurojust, Spain's National Police force has dismantled an alleged criminal organisation in the province of Malaga that had a 1,000-square-metre industrial marijuana plantation buried underground and two cocaine laboratories. A total of 24 people have been arrested, six of them in Spain and 18 in France, according to the National Police. Those arrested allegedly formed a criminal organisation dedicated to the production of cocaine and other drugs that were sent to France, from where they were distributed to other central European countries.
A total of 23 raids have been carried out, nine of them in Spain, leading to the dismantling of two cocaine laboratories in the province of Malaga and, hidden in one of them, an industrial-size marijuana plantation.
The investigation began in May 2024 when police officers detected a criminal organisation that was supplying various drugs to the northern part of France and central European countries. The leader of the organisation had moved to Malaga province to set up several cocaine laboratories and direct the criminal structure from Spain.
The investigations detected that the alleged criminal network had a high geographical mobility and that it used different suppliers in the south of Spain, for which it had established contacts with criminal groups in Cordoba, Seville and Malaga. During the course of the investigation, the officers identified each of the alleged members of the organisation, as well as the role played by each of them, according to the National Police in a press release.
Surveillance led to the detection of an infrastructure consisting of two cocaine laboratories in the province of Malaga whose products were transported in vehicles equipped with sophisticated hydraulic systems to France, where it was stored for subsequent distribution in the north of the country and in central Europe.
In addition, the police discovered that they took advantage of sending cocaine in convoys of vehicles to transport other narcotics such as hashish, marijuana and synthetic drugs.
The operation was carried out after investigators discovered that one of the convoys was preparing to transport narcotics to France. As a result, a security operation was organised, supported by Europol and Eurojust, with the deployment of National Police officers in France and the French Gendarmerie in Spanish territory.
Once the convoy was intercepted, a simultaneous operation of arrests and searches was carried out in both countries, in which 24 people were arrested as alleged members of the organisation. Among those arrested was the alleged leader of the organisation who, upon becoming aware of the police operation, tried to escape to Thailand from Madrid.
The nine searches carried out in Spain have taken place in Torremolinos, Marbella, Coín, Almogía and Malaga, as well as in Lucena and Aguilar de la Frontera, in the province of Cordoba.
In these raids, two cocaine laboratories that the organisation had set up in Coín and Malaga were dismantled. Three indoor marijuana plantations have also been dismantled, one of them next to one of the cocaine laboratories, distributed over two underground levels.
Various narcotic substances were seized, specifically 17 kilos of cocaine, 155 kilos of hashish, 15 kilos of marijuana, five kilos of synthetic drugs and 100 litres of chemical precursors; in addition to an assault rifle and a submachine gun, a revolver, a shotgun, four electric stun guns, three modified weapons, 60 mobile phones, six high-end vehicles and 225,000 euros in cash.
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