Cocaine has many, all illegal, doors to reach consumers in large quantities. One of those entrances is at the container ports, where the drug arrives hidden under general cargo, with a recipient who doesn’t know anything, and remains piled in the towers of thousands of nearly identical containers until someone removes it to make it onto the market bring. The Guardia Civil has just arrested 30 people who were doing this in the port of Algeciras (Cádiz), led by a Spanish drug trafficker named El Risitas, who controlled an organization of 30 truck drivers and stevedores from a prison in Valencia (ca (professional group ) who entered and exited the vacant site as if it were their own as they had safe conduct from their company.A total of 1,000 kilos of cocaine was seized in two batches.
The operation began in September 2022 when investigators spotted a group of truck drivers from the same freight company in Algeciras, who appeared to be using their access to the port to remove and hide drugs from containers. This fact was confirmed in December 2022, when 500 kilos of cocaine were seized in nine suitcases hidden in the cabin of a truck at the exit of the port of Algeciras. “In this action, the truck driver and five other people who were traveling in another truck that had reached the port terminal at the same time and whose task was to open the container in the same terminal, take out the suitcases and put them into the first truck were arrested,” the Guardia Civil assured in a press release distributed this morning.
The coup made it possible to identify the leaders of the network, led by a well-known Spanish drug dealer named El Risitas, who was arrested during the investigation and sent to a Valencian prison. With him fell two of his lieutenants, who were responsible for operations and logistics while hiring people they trusted. One of these underbosses frequently visited the capo in prison. They always worked the same: two trucks pulled into the port, one with a hidden collar that jumped when it reached the medicine container, bagged it, and took it to the other truck. Everything is guarded by a network of water carriers who warn of security forces’ movements. The detainees wore the uniforms of Marapie or Sestibalsa, the port’s damming and unloading company.
With the operation now at full capacity, investigators ambushed the drug dealers at the port, knowing full well that they would be entering for a delivery: thus two trucks were intercepted, one carrying another 500 kilos of cocaine in the cabin, while the necklace was hidden in the other was. After identifying the entire network and seizing the drugs, the guards arrested 30 people and conducted 23 house searches, which found “10 vehicles, $200,000 in cash, 90 pounds of cocaine, an assault submachine gun and two small firearms, jewelry and watches.” of high economic value, a large number of cutting tools for opening sea containers, and uniformed clothing for dock workers for camouflage within container terminals. The last of the Coke packets were labeled Yosemite Sam, the gunslinger character from Looney Tunes.
In the past two months, the Guardia Civil has dismantled two other gangs dedicated to importing cocaine from South America into Spain in containers arriving at the port of Algeciras. In early March, 15 people were arrested for importing two tons of cocaine in this way, and in April the so-called Farruku clan led by Kreshnik Budlla, Niko, was arrested on multiple charges and is currently on the run located before the judiciary has been dismantled.
The investigations that put an end to Risitas were carried out by the Organic Unit of the Criminal Police Department (UOPJ) of Algeciras, in collaboration with the Central Unit of the Guardia Civil (UCO) and EUROPOL, and directed by the investigative authority Court number 5 of Algeciras and coordinated by the Anti-Drug Prosecutor Campo de Gibraltar.
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