At 200 km/h to carry 50 million euros in cocaine: the drug transporters fall

BarcelonaIt was a luxury villa in Sant Just Desvern with a pool, a game room, and all kinds of amenities. Inside, however, it was practically empty: without sofas, chairs, tables, or beds. Who lived there? Nobody. It had been rented for a couple of days by a man of Albanian origin—in reality, they had used his details as a front. When the National Police agents entered, they went through room by room, surprised not to find even a single piece of furniture, but finally, in the garage, they located what they were looking for: 1,351 kilograms of pure cocaine.

This house located in a residential area of Sant Just was a daycare –a place to hide drugs– that an Albanian clan with family ties had rented to store cocaine before continuing to move it by road towards Europe. The delegate of the Spanish government in Catalonia, Carlos Prieto, stated in a press conference from the Zona Franca that the police had dismantled a group "with many resources and great logistical capacity." In fact, they were the drug truckers: they received it in the south of Spain and brought it to the north of the country. But they did not do it with trucks, but with luxury cars, such as an Audi RS8, loaded to the brim with packages of cocaine, which could even be seen through the windows, and driving at 200 kilometers per hour, for hours and hours. In one day, they managed to travel 2,000 kilometers.

In fact, one of the agents who monitored them closely recalls how they pushed police cars to the limit to be able to keep up with them. Furthermore, they took many precautions and transported the drugs accompanied by four or five other vehicles that acted as lookouts; some further ahead and others further behind, checking the whole time if there was police. And the radars? They passed them without braking and were photographed, but they did not care, because the cars were often registered to more front men, people of Albanian origin in some cases in situations of social vulnerability, and, in addition, they had automotive companies that they used to launder money, but also to have cars that were not registered and falsified rental contracts.

Military discipline

The National Police asserts that this clan, established on the Costa del Sol and living in mansions with views of the Marbella coast, had a "quasi-military" discipline. Omertà was mandatory. They did not trust telematic communications, and the group's leaders would drive from Marbella to Barcelona just for a five-minute face-to-face meeting. For all these reasons, according to the police, it has been so difficult to catch them, especially considering that it seems they had been operating since 2016 and their names appeared in various police investigations.

Now the Spanish police claim to have completely dismantled the group, after carrying out 15 arrests. Of those arrested, 12 have been remanded in custody. During the operation, more than 2,700 kilograms of cocaine were seized in Sant Just Desvern and Malaga, as well as 800 grams of tusi, two short firearms, and 29 high-end vehicles. Cryptoassets, financial products, and real estate have also been frozen. It all began last year, when a tip-off from Colombian authorities warned the Spanish police of a cocaine shipment heading to the country. The dismantled group was not in charge of receiving the cocaine nor selling it: they only moved it, and Catalonia was a key area for cooling it –this is how the act of stopping at a stash house and waiting a few hours to continue the journey is known.

"There is nothing beyond the reach of the police"

This operation was presented today at a press conference from the National Police facilities at the port of Barcelona, with all the bales of cocaine, some slightly open, with the white powder visible to the naked eye, surrounding the police commanders and the politicians who spoke. In total, they were surrounded by about 50 million euros worth of drugs, packages that were marked with the name "Vacheron Constantin". This is a Swiss watch brand, and it is common for cocaine producers to put the names of luxury brands and even famous people on them as a commercial strategy.

"In Catalonia there is nothing beyond the reach of the police," said delegate Prieto, accompanied by the head of the Central Organized Crime Unit (Udyco), Antonio Jesús Martínez Duarte, and the Chief Inspector of the special response group for organized crime (Greco) Costa del Sol, Luis Amaro Villabona. Although the investigation has not linked them to the cocaine entering the port of Barcelona, police sources point out that they were well-known in criminal circuits and were "reliable" transporters, and this means that it cannot be ruled out that they also worked for the clans established in the country.