A pardoned drug trafficker and drug 'daycares' in Barcelona: cocaine wholesalers fall

BarcelonaThe drug market ends up functioning like that of any legal product. There are the producers (in the case of cocaine, located in South America), the clans that move the drugs by sea to Europe, the groups in charge of receiving and storing it, and the cartels that sell it to wholesalers, who in turn sell it to those who end up retailing it, known as dealers. Now the Civil Guard claims to have interrupted an important part of this chain.

The Spanish police announced this Thursday that they have dismantled a group based in Catalonia that, daily, bought drugs and sold them to smaller buyers. They also stored the merchandise and transported it in hidden compartments of high-end cars, such as a Porsche or a large Mercedes. The recipients of the drugs were mainly four clients: three distributors in the Barcelona area and a network in the Maresme region with activity in Mataró, Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, and Pineda de Mar. They are even investigating whether they also distributed drugs on an international scale.

In total, the Civil Guard has arrested twenty people and seized 56 kilos of cocaine, 2.8 of methamphetamine, and 1.8 of MDMA. Sixteen of the arrests were made in the Barcelona area, two in Lleida, one in Móstoles (Madrid), and another in Elche (Alicante). The base of the organization was in Barcelona, although the merchandise was also stored and transported from Lleida, where a storage unit was located with 5.74 kilos of cocaine and 28,000 euros.

The majority of those arrested –13 of whom have already been placed in provisional prison– had criminal records, to the point that the leader of the gang had been pardoned in 2007 for the same crime of drug trafficking. This man was in charge of setting prices and pickup points and supervised the deliveries. The Civil Guard points out that they obtained the drugs in Madrid, although they have not ruled out that there are other entry points such as the port or the airport of Barcelona.

The Civil Guard has confirmed a total of six storage points, five homes and a storage room, which the organization used as stash houses (places where drugs are kept before being distributed), five of which were in Barcelona and one in Lleida. The main stash house was in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, near La Farga shopping center, one of the organization's areas of influence.

Epicenter in the metropolitan area

Also as a result of the operation, which culminated on September 30, 409,275 euros in cash have been seized and 57 bank accounts and four properties valued at 1.1 million euros have been blocked. In addition, they found a firearm with a silencer. In a press conference, the delegate of the Spanish government in Catalonia, Carlos Prieto, celebrated that the operation has managed to "cut off one of the key steps for drugs to reach the street" in a context in which, he warns, criminal groups are "increasingly organized and specialized".

The operation, which was carried out by the judicial police of the Civil Guard of Catalonia in collaboration with Europol and the American drug enforcement agency (DEA), resulted in September in 23 simultaneous searches in different parts of Catalonia such as L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Sant Joan Despí, Cornellà de Llobregat, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Begues and Mataró. Precisely the property in Sant Boi was used as one of the main warehouses and is where the weapon with the erased serial number and a silencer was found, as well as 12 kilos of cocaine and 50,710 euros.