Spanish police have cracked down on a dangerous Albanian criminal organization based in Catalonia. During the operation, over 2.7 tons of cocaine were seized. Spanish media have published details about how the gang operated.
Nga Cesc Maideu, ARA
It was a luxurious villa in Sant Just Desvern, with a swimming pool, games room and every kind of comfort.
Inside, however, it was practically empty: no sofas, no chairs, no tables, and no beds. Who lived there? Nobody.
A person of Albanian origin had rented it for a few days — in reality, his details had been used as a front person.
When the National Police agents entered, they searched room after room, surprised to find not a single piece of furniture, but finally, in the garage, they found what they were looking for: 1,351 kilograms of pure cocaine.
This house, located in a residential complex in Sant Just, was a “guardería” – a place to hide drugs – that an Albanian clan with family connections had rented to store cocaine before continuing to transport it by road to Europe.
The Spanish government’s delegate in Catalonia, Carlos Prieto, stated at a press conference from the Zona Franca that the police had put an end to a group “with many resources and a lot of logistical capacity.”
In fact, they were the drug transporters: they would pick it up in the south of Spain and take it all the way to the north of the country.
But they didn’t do it with trucks, but with luxury cars, like an Audi RS8, loaded full of packages of cocaine, which were even visible from the windows, and moving at 200 kilometers per hour, for hours. In one day, they managed to cover 2,000 kilometers.
In fact, one of the agents who observed them closely recalls how the police would drive their cars to the limit in order to keep up with them.
In addition, they took many precautions and transported the drugs accompanied by four or five other vehicles that carried out surveillance; some in front and others behind, checking all the time for police presence.
What about the speed cameras? They would pass them without stopping and take pictures, but they didn’t care, because the cars were often in the names of other front people, in some cases people of Albanian origin who were in a situation of social vulnerability.
Furthermore, they had car companies that served them to launder money, but also to have cars that were not registered and falsified rental contracts.
Military discipline
The National Police assures that this clan, located on the Costa del Sol and living in luxury villas overlooking the Marbella coast, had an “almost military” discipline. Omertà, the code of silence, was mandatory. They did not trust electronic communications and the group’s leaders would only drive from Marbella to Barcelona for a five-minute physical meeting.
For all these reasons, according to the police, it has been so difficult to catch them, especially considering that they appear to have been operating since 2016 and that their names have been recurring in various police investigations.
Now Spanish police claim to have completely dismantled the group, after making 15 arrests. Of the arrested people, 12 have been remanded in custody.
During the operation, more than 2,700 kilograms of cocaine were seized in Sant Just Desvern and Málaga, as well as 800 grams of methamphetamine, two short firearms and 29 high-end vehicles.
Crypto-assets, financial products, and real estate have also been frozen.
It all started last year, when a tip from Colombian authorities alerted Spanish police to a cocaine shipment heading towards the country.
The dismantled group was neither responsible for receiving the cocaine nor for selling it: it was only transporting it, and Catalonia was a key area for “cooling it down” — that’s what stopping at a “guardería” and waiting for several hours before continuing the journey is called.
“Nothing is beyond the police’s control”
This operation was presented today at a press conference from the National Police premises in the port of Barcelona, with all the packages of cocaine, some of them slightly open, with the white powder visible to the naked eye, surrounding the police leaders and politicians who attended.
In total, they were surrounded by around 50 million euros of drugs, with some packages bearing the name “Vacheron Constantin.” This is a Swiss watch brand, and it is common for cocaine manufacturers to label their shipments with luxury brand names, even the names of famous people, as a marketing 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 head 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 circles and were “trusted” transporters, and this means that it cannot be ruled out that they also worked for clans established in the country.
© SYRI.net