Dozens arrested, 8 tons of cocaine seized in major operation in Europe

European police forces detained around 40 people in a years-long operation to dismantle a major drug trafficking network, which led to the seizure of eight tonnes of cocaine, Europol said on Thursday.

The cartel, whose leaders were based in Turkey and Dubai, suffered a major blow after a final series of arrests on Wednesday, the Hague-based police coordination said. agency said.

The network had “the capacity to transport tons and tons of cocaine all over the world,” Oscar Esteban Remacha, head of the anti-drug trafficking unit of the Spanish Guardia Civil, said at a press conference in Madrid.

Europol released images and a almost 10 minute video Thursday, showing K-9 dogs and officers finding bags of suspected drugs, as well as several suspects being detained. The video also shows at least one boat being intercepted at sea with police officers unloading bags of suspected narcotics.

According to Europol, the final phase of the operation began with the discovery, in August 2023, by the Guardia Civil, of 1,540 pounds of cocaine on a boat off the Canary Islands, crewed by Croatian and Italian citizens.

Spain is a main entry point for drugs into Europe, given its ties to Latin America and its proximity to Morocco.

After exchanging their findings with other police forces, investigators found links to previous seizures, leading to the identification of the gang’s leaders, authorities said.

Many members of the network were from Balkan countries, Europol said.

In total, around 40 people were detained in six countries, including two prominent Croatian members of the network, who were detained in Istanbul late last year.

The latest four arrests were made on Wednesday in Spain, Europol said.

“Bombings, murders, professional murders”

Heavily armed Guardia Civil police arrested a 40-year-old suspect during a dawn raid on Wednesday at his home in the Mediterranean seaside resort of Marbella, according to an AFP journalist who witnessed the operation.

“This is one of the biggest operations against Balkan cartels to date,” said a Croatian police officer, Tomislav Stambuk, at the press conference.

“Serious assessments indicate that the Balkan cartel is responsible for supplying…more than half of the cocaine” in Europe, Stambuk said.

Many of the network’s assets, worth a total of several tens of millions of euros, have been seized or frozen, Europol added. It said smugglers sent cocaine from South America to logistics centers in West Africa and the Canary Islands.

It was then sent to centers in Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Italy and Spain for distribution across Europe.

The seizure comes at a time when cocaine production is “skyrocketing”, said the head of Europol’s narcotics department, Robert Fay. Cocaine seizures at European ports have reached record levels, he said, calling the rise in drug-related violence across the bloc “worrying.”

“We see bombings, murders, professional assassinations and shootings happening almost every day in the European Union,” said Fay.

The arrests in Spain come about a month after Spanish police seized 1.8 tons of crystallized methamphetamine that Mexico Sinaloa Cartel I was trying sell in Europethe country “biggest seizure of all time” of the narcotic, authorities said.

Authorities around the world have recently made other large cocaine seizures. A few days ago, Colombian Navy officials seized two semi-submersible ships loaded with almost 5 tons of cocaine in the Pacific Ocean.

The previous week, the US Coast Guard said it had unloaded $63 million worth of cocaine at a port in Florida after a high speed shooting which sank a suspected drug smuggling boat and its crew in the Caribbean Sea. Last month, the French Navy said it confiscated 2.4 tons of cocaine of a fishing boat in the Atlantic Ocean.

Colombia produces around 60% of the world’s cocaine.