The deputy head of the Customs Surveillance Service in Catalonia is in pretrial detention for allegedly being part of a smuggling ring operating in the Port of Barcelona. Francisco Javier Martín Miñana, just days away from retirement, was the head of the Customs Surveillance Operational Unit, a position considered the second-highest ranking in Catalonia within the Tax Agency's group tasked with combating smuggling and drug trafficking. A total of eight people have been arrested, some of them dockworkers and transporters from the Port. Apart from Miñana, three others have been provisionally imprisoned. During the investigation, the Civil Guard and the Tax Agency point out, they have been caught with more than two million boxes of blond tobacco, valued at more than 8.8 million euros.