Criminal organisation dedicated to cocaine trafficking on the Costa del Sol

Investigators from the National Police, in a joint operation with the Guardia Civil, have dismantled a criminal organisation dedicated to cocaine trafficking on the Costa del Sol.

As a result of the investigation, seven people have been arrested and more than two kilos of cocaine have been seized, as well as several vehicles luxury, boats, and more than 10,000 euro in cash.

The gang leader, who worked as a janitor in a school in Marbella, had assets of more than half a million euro, although the properties were listed in the names of different relatives.

The investigation began in the middle of last year when the agents learned of the existence of an organisation that allegedly carried out continuous shipments of cocaine – in quantities close to a kilo – to different parts of Andalusia, where they later sold it in lower quantities. The first investigations made it possible to verify the existence of the network, based on the Costa del Sol, whose members were involved in the interprovincial distribution of cocaine from Malaga to Almería and Granada.

Thanks to various police efforts, the agents detected and identified several individuals who, allegedly, were engaged in distributing large quantities of cocaine using stained vehicles. In addition, they observed that members of the group – who already had a history of drug trafficking – carried out movements compatible with the illicit activities referred to. This led to the investigation being prosecuted in November 2020.

With the progress of the investigations, the agents discovered the existence of a distribution of tasks among the members of the organisation, as well as the infrastructure they had to carry out their purposes. The main person in charge of the network caught the attention of the researchers due to his high standard of living; In this sense, his work as a janitor in a public school in Marbella contrasted with driving luxury vehicles or recreational boats, one of them a yacht, which he had docked in the marina of the Malaga city.

During the investigation, the agents located the other members of the organisation, who were under the command and supervision of the former. On the one hand, they identified the drivers of the vehicles during the transfers of the drug to other parts of Andalusia. For the transports, they used vehicles that appeared in the name of third parties – those in charge of the logistics of the organization-, in such a way that the material authors of the transports could not be related to those in charge of carrying out other functions such as, for example, the counter-surveillance. On the other hand, they also identified the recipients of the drug, who allegedly were in charge of cutting the cocaine and later distributing it in smaller quantities to the final consumers.

Once all the members of the organisation had been identified, the modus operandi detected and the vehicles used located, in March of this year the agents detained an individual while he was transferring a kilo of cocaine from the Malaga town of Marbella to Roquetas de Mar, in Almería. This led to the intensification of security measures by the rest of the members of the organisation who, however, did not cease their activity. Days later they prepared a new shipment that culminated, again, with the arrest of another of the organisation’s drivers and the intervention of more than a kilo of cocaine. The illicit merchandise travelled hidden in a compartment or cove, specially designed to avoid the detection of large quantities of drugs in a possible police control.

Finally, the operational exploitation of the investigation was carried out, which concluded with the arrest of the main suspect, the search of their homes and the intervention of their assets, among which are various luxury vehicles, three boats and more than 10,000 euro cash.