Algeciras (Cádiz), (EFE).- The Civil Guard, with the support of Europol, has seized assets worth more than four million euros from the Farruku clan, allegedly dedicated to the introduction of cocaine into Spain, during the operation which culminated on April 12 with the arrest of those most responsible for it.
This has been announced by the armed institute at a press conference at the Algeciras Command (Cádiz), in which representatives of Europol have also participated and in which they have estimated 39 detainees in the different phases of the operation .
During its development, assets worth 4.2 million euros have been blocked, including 22 buildings and twenty vehicles. And all levels of the organization have been dismantled, according to the Civil Guard, which has indicated that its leaders are an Albanian family clan, the Farruku, based on the Costa del Sol, as well as in Madrid and Barcelona.
The operational part, according to the armed institute, was in charge of accessing the merchandise, separating the drug from it, storing it, and transporting it. This level is made up of, for the most part, Spanish citizens from Campo de Gibraltar and the Costa del Sol.
Almost 50 people arrested
For its part, the logistics part provided legal cover for the organization, facilitating companies to import merchandise to hide the drugs and companies to launder the benefits of illegal activities.
It is with this last part of the organization that the lawyer Juan Fernández is linked, arrested in this operation and whose office, on Larios street in the capital of Malaga, was registered.
Throughout the operation, 39 people have been arrested, 19 of them on April 12. And in the first intervention in Algeciras, another eleven were arrested, while the remaining nine were carried out over several apprehensions over two and a half years.
The investigation began as a result of the intervention of two tons of cocaine in a container in the port of Algeciras from Guayaquil (Ecuador), with a shipment of frozen fish.
Days after that intervention in Algeciras, an Albanian citizen related to the organization was assassinated in a restaurant in Ecuador.
About 20 tons of drugs seized
This intervention took place in January 2022, although the researchers were aware of the existence of the organization since September 2021. The Civil Guard has evidence that the organization had been carrying out this activity since at least 2017.
Part of his activity was the exchange of cocaine for hashish with other organizations in South America in the transaction called “kilo per kilo”, since its value is considered equivalent, in this case that of hashish in North Africa and South of Europe than that of cocaine in South America.
About 10 tons of each of these two substances have been seized from this organization.
The head of the Algeciras Civil Guard Command, Colonel Francisco Almansa; the head of the Organic Unit of the Military Police of the same, Captain Pedro García; the commander of the Civil Guard and member of Europol, Borja Pastor; and the head of Europol’s European Department Against Financial and Economic Crime, Burkhard Mühr. EFE