Córdoba (EFE).- A joint operation between the Civil Guard and the National Police has enabled the seizure of more than 22 tons of hashish, valued at 45 million euros, and has resulted in the arrest of ten people in the provinces of Cordoba and Malaga.
“Operation Califa” involves dismantling a criminal organization dedicated to drug trafficking between Morocco and France, for its subsequent distribution throughout the rest of Europe.
The investigation, which is still open, has also been carried out in the provinces of Cádiz and Barcelona, although without arrests in them, both security forces and the Government Sub-delegation in Córdoba reported this Friday.
Hash camouflaged as tomatoes
The drug was camouflaged as wrapped tomatoes and the criminal organization operated through intermediary companies, which made them a “complex network”, in which there were “people who were good at” operating as if they “grow tomatoes” and Others that they were “straw men who lent their names as owners of real estate and vehicles”, according to what the chief colonel of the Civil Guard of Córdoba, Juan Carretero, pointed out at a press conference.
In an “unprecedented operation”, as the Government sub-delegate in Córdoba, Rafaela Valenzuela described it, the Units against Crime and Organized Crime (UDYCO) of Fuengirola (Málaga) and Barcelona and Group I of Narcotics of the Judicial Police Brigade of Córdoba of the National Police and the Organized Crime and Anti-drug Teams (EDOA) of the Civil Guard of Córdoba and Cádiz.
Although the head of the network operated from the city of Córdoba, the first arrests were made in Mollina (Málaga), when “the investigators wisely decided to exploit this phase of the investigation,” Carretero stressed.
cannabis resin
At that time, on January 10, a van was intercepted at the exit of a warehouse in an industrial estate located on the outskirts of Mollina, where there were indications that the drug entering from Morocco along the coast of Cádiz was stored.
The apparent load of quality tomatoes that the vehicle was carrying turned out to be 2,600 kilos of cannabis resin, which joined another 19,700 that intervened in the subsequent search of two warehouses in the industrial zone of the Malaga municipality, where two others were arrested. members of the criminal organization who were hiding under a truck.
Following this action, on January 11 and 12, in a simultaneous operation carried out in several locations in the province of Córdoba that the investigators have not wanted to specify, although they did specify that they are both in the capital and in the province, the Responsible for the investigation by the Civil Guard and the National Police, with the support of special units, proceeded to enter and search four homes.
“Operation Caliph”
In this phase of “Operation Califa”, carried out under the authorization of the head of the Court of Instruction number 8 of Córdoba, seven other people were arrested and numerous documents have been intervened with which they hope to unravel the dimension of the organization in Europe.
In addition, they have seized a certain amount of money that the investigators do not attach importance to, as well as the taser pistol, and seven vehicles, four of them trucks, “in addition to numerous effects,” said the main commissioner of the National Police in Cordoba, Carlos Serra.
Among the detainees there are eight Spanish citizens, a Moroccan and a Bulgarian, of whom eight have entered provisional prison and seven had residence in Córdoba.
In fact, Serra stated that “some of them” had already been investigated by the National Police in other anti-drug operations.
The commissioner stressed that it was “a highly hierarchical organization, with different economic structures giving the appearance of legality.”
It was the Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime of the Secretary of State for the Interior (CITCO) that alerted the Civil Guard and the National Police that they were carrying out investigations that could be related, which has allowed “a exceptional work, example in research and coordination”, in the words of Carlos Serra.
This operation is the one that has seized the largest volume of drugs in a joint action by the two security forces in the province of Córdoba, highlighted the sub-delegation of the Government. EFE
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