Spanish Civil Guard dismantles a criminal group dedicated to international cocaine trafficking
The Spanish Civil Guard, in the so-called Operation Stratum, has dismantled a criminal organization linked to the extraction of large quantities of cocaine from the Port of Algeciras.
The Estratum operation has resulted in the arrest of 14 people and another 7 who appear as investigated in the case, having carried out a total of 20 searches in homes, including several Andalusian companies and in which some two million people have been intervened. euros, 29 vehicles, several of them high-end, a truck trailer, several encrypted mobile phone devices, two marijuana plantations inside the houses, luxury watches from well-known brands and a handgun, in addition to a large quantity of documentation related to the investigation.
The dismantled organization was based mainly in the La Palmilla neighborhood of Malaga, and its main distribution channels were centered in Marbella (Malaga), through a Spanish businessman linked for years to drug trafficking, who distributed the drug for almost all the Andalusian provinces and Madrid.
After almost a year of investigation, the Civil Guard agents managed to identify several individuals related to a cold store inside the Port of Algeciras, from where large quantities of cocaine were extracted, with a particular method, consisting of changing the pallet. that contained the narcotic substance by another identical and “clean” previously prepared. With this peculiar modus operandi, in April of last year, this organization introduced at least 500 kg of cocaine, part of which has already been intervened.
The Civil Guard and the Anti-Narcotics Directorate of the Colombian Police
The success of this operation is largely due to the excellent collaboration between the Civil Guard and the Anti-Narcotics Directorate of the Colombian Police, through which it was possible to locate several containers capable of carrying certain amounts of cocaine inside.
In September 2019, 450 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a container of bananas from Medellín (Colombia) and destined for a French company based in Spain, totally unrelated to this illegal activity, were intervened by the Civil Guard. On that occasion, the organization, now dismantled, could not give the “change” to the pallet that was carrying the drug and said substance was apprehended.
ALLIS UBBO and ESTRATUM operations; fall of “The Lord of the Port”
Agents of the Central Anti-drug Group of the Central Operational Unit have intensified in recent years their operations against various criminal groups dedicated to cocaine trafficking that operate in different provinces in southern Spain and in Campo de Gibraltar.
In the summer of 2018, this group carried out the exploitation of the ALLIS UBBO operation, in which 21 people were arrested, 10 of them workers from the Port of Algeciras. The plenary session of this Macro trial has recently been held, in which most of them have been sentenced with significant penalties.
On the other hand, at the end of 2019, the first phase of Operation ESTRATUM materialized, in which the man known by various criminal organizations as “El Señor del Puerto” was arrested, as a recipient of all kinds of contacts for the introduction of large shipments of cocaine through said port. This person had a total of 13,000 € 50 bills hidden in shoe boxes inside a billiard room at his home.
The ESTRATUM operation has been carried out jointly by the Central Anti-drug Group of the Central Operative Unit and OCON-SUR, all coordinated by the Court of Instruction No. 5 of Torremolinos (Malaga). Different units of the Civil Guard Command of Algeciras, Malaga and Seville have participated in the exploitation phase, as well as members of the GAR, GRS, UHEL and the Cinological Service.
