Eighteen people on trial for drug trafficking

The Court of Las Palmas has summoned 18 defendants to appear today in relation to a drug trafficking crime to try to reach an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office, which requests sentences ranging from three to nine years in prison.

The network in which they allegedly participated carried out operations to introduce cocaine into Spain by air using human couriers and by sea using the blind hook or lost hook system, which consists of using a container with legal and documented cargo to hide the narcotic substances.

According to the indictment from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, LHM was responsible for organising the alleged criminal groups. Customs Surveillance and the National Police intercepted the Maersk Bintan ship on September 25, 2013 at the Algeciras terminal, where it had stopped on its way from Ecuador to the Port of La Luz. In a container of frozen seafood and shrimp on said vessel, 53 packages of white compact matter appeared that tested positive for cocaine.

In the process, a port worker was arrested who supposedly provided cover for two of the accused to transport cocaine to the rest of the island and had left them a van that he used as a terminal operator for this purpose. The ship was carrying a total of 42 kilos and 832 grams of cocaine, with a market value of 1,465,154 euro.

Two other defendants organised, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, a second shipment of cocaine from Brazil to Las Palmas. On December 8, 2013, a container that was suspected of transporting cocaine from Brazil was located in the Port of La Luz. Hidden behind a first row of sugar bags, four black canvas sports bags were found with 138.43 kilos of cocaine, valued at 4,769,482 euro.

Successive arrests were made as a result of these operations and, “when AMD was admitted as a preventive prisoner in the Las Palmas Penitentiary Centre, he agreed with CSM to introduce narcotic substances into the prison to proceed with their distribution among the inmate population,” maintains the Fiscal Ministry.

The accusatory document adds that “these substances were introduced on February 26, 2014 at 5:42 p.m. by DPM and RGM, following the instructions of AM and CDS, and throwing 7.64 grams of heroin and 19 .74 grams of hashish, being detained by agents of the National Police in the perimeter of the Salto del Negro prison, seizing 50.76 grams of hashish that they were going to throw into the penitentiary centre.” The seized substance has a market value of 479 euro.

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