The National Police is investigating a drug trafficking network based in the province of Alicante that is dedicated to exporting marijuana to Ireland and Sweden. The drug is vacuum packed and mixed in with legal merchandise, such as animal feed, which is then sent outside of Spain from the province of Alicante through different postal parcel companies.
The police operation, which is being carried out in close collaboration with the Garda Síochána of Ireland and the National Crime Agency (NCA) of the United Kingdom, has arrested two people following the discovery of two shipments with about 210 kilos of marijuana, valued at two million euros, with more arrests expected in the coming days.
One of the caches, of almost 90 kilos of marijuana, was seized in a company located in Torrellano and the other, of about 120 kilos, upon it’s arrival in Ireland.
One of the arrests was made last February in the province of Alicante and another in Dublin in November of last year. The police investigations are still open new arrests are expected.
The National Police anti-drug operation was launched after information was received about a company in Alicante that was thought to be sending around 150 kilos of marijuana every week to Ireland and other northern European countries.
The drug was exported through parcel transport companies and the network had a Spaniard in Ireland who received the shipments to later distribute among different groups of traffickers.
International cooperation
The Spanish Police have had the collaboration of the Garda Síochána who intercepted one of the suspicious parcel shipments from Alicante. When the goods arrived in Dublin, the boxes were checked and some 120 kilos of marijuana were seized, in addition to the arrest of a Spanish man from the organisation.
The investigation continued and last February the National Police found a second shipment in a transport company located in Torrellano business park. On this occasion, the Police inspected twenty boxes that were supposed to contain animal feed, they discovered almost 90 kilos of vacuum-packed marijuana.
The Police arrested a second Spaniard with a history of drug trafficking, specifically for growing marijuana to later export it to other European countries.
