Alicante, (EFE).- The National Police have dismantled a criminal network based in the Palmerales neighborhood of Elche and made up of two family clans that had been controlling the distribution and sale of heroin and cocaine at retail for at least two years and He has carried out 10 searches and 15 arrests.
The “macro operation” has also managed to dismantle the main points of sale and consumption of narcotic drugs called “dens.”
In the records, various amounts of narcotic substances, various weapons and a large amount of ammunition have been seized, within the framework of a macro operation carried out by the Elche Police Station and supported from the air by the Air Resources Service and various special units of the National Police.
five months of investigation
After five months of investigation carried out by the narcotics group of the Elche police station, the agents were able to determine the “refined” way of acting that the members of the criminal group had to manage these points of sale, floors called “fumaderos” where they sold cocaine and heroin, retail and which were frequented 24 hours a day by drug addicts who consumed the drug in the same place where they acquired it, hence the name given to these houses.
The agents, during the investigation, found out that these dens were controlled by members of the organization, which was made up of two different family clans, in charge of managing the purchase, storage, distribution and sale of each of these drugs separately.
Two organized clans
Thus, while one clan controlled all the cocaine that entered and was sold in Los Palmerales, the other clan controlled the entry and sale of heroin. However, both clans shared the criminal infrastructure, since all the drugs were sold at the same points of sale.
Both clans avoided the collection of quantities of drugs of notorious importance, in fact they bought enough quantities of drugs to supply the points of sale for approximately a week and, before it ran out, they acquired new quantities to be able to continue the business in this way. business, even using third parties to hide their assets and properties to avoid a possible link between their assets and the illicit income obtained.
They also controlled the Vega Baja
The agents discovered that the disjointed criminal network not only controlled retail drug trafficking in the town of Elche, but also in Vega Baja.
Between the two clans, they distributed narcotic substances from eight drug sales points, which generated about €1,000 a day in each one, to which about 100 people a day could go in each one.
Given the high security measures adopted by the criminal network, the police operation was designed in two phases. In the first phase, 200 grams of heroin were seized and three people were arrested for whom the Court agreed to imprisonment without bail.
For this second phase of the operation, a large police operation has been deployed with the participation of the Air Resources Service Helicopter, the Technical Interventions Operational Group (GOIT), canine handlers, the Prevention and Reaction Unit, the Response Operations Group and of practically all the members of all the judicial police groups of the Elche police station.
Eight simultaneous records
In total, 10 searches have been carried out, of which eight were simultaneous, thanks to which the criminal group has been completely dismantled with the arrest of fifteen people as members of the network.
In the records, 220 grams of cocaine was seized divided into small doses prepared for retail sale; 6 grams of heroin; 310 grams of hashish and 39 marijuana plants.
On the other hand, various weapons were intervened; two pistols and 130 cartridges of different calibers, two shotguns and 15 cartridges, in addition to other prohibited weapons such as a rapier cane and an extendable defense with a built-in taser, to which must be added two vehicles and 16,575 euros in cash.
Those arrested took “extreme” security measures, mainly in the accesses to the “smoking rooms”, which had up to triple armored doors to prevent access to them by the police.
Nine men and six women arrested
The detainees, nine men and six women, between the ages of 22 and 56, were made available to the Investigating Court on duty in the same town, which ordered the imprisonment of three of them, those considered ringleaders of the network. criminal.
