According to the Spanish Police, nine of the arrests occurred in Chile and the other four in France, in this operation, in which 70 kilos of cocaine sent from Bolivia to France through Spain were seized.
“The criminal organization manufactured the machinery with the purpose of sending the narcotic hidden in the rollers of soil compaction machines,” he highlighted in a statement. .
The investigation was initiated by the Chilean Investigative Police, when it detected a new organization that intended to import large quantities of cocaine hydrochloride from Bolivia into its country, with the aim of “opening a new export route to Europe” for this drug. explains the statement.
In contact with the Spanish Police, they discovered that the destination was the Spanish port of Barcelona, and then distributed the drugs throughout Europe, once transported by road to the French city of Perpignan.
Exporters based in Valparaíso
“The exporters of the narcotic substance, based in the Chilean city of Valparaíso, began to weave a business network that would have front men as administrators to be able to mask the real people responsible for the illicit shipments,” added this source.
Last February, the Chilean authorities detected that the organization had hidden drugs in two agricultural machines built by itself, which were going to be sent from Valparaíso via Barcelona on a merchant ship with its final destination to Perpignan.
A device in a town near Perpignan, with French, Spanish and Chilean agents, arrested four alleged members of the organization, who a judge sent to provisional prison, “in charge of dismantling the machines and collecting the narcotic, with the aim of carrying distribution,” he said.
“In this first phase, in which 70 kilos of cocaine hydrochloride were seized, the part of the criminal organization dedicated to the importation of cocaine hydrochloride in quantities of notorious importance was dismantled,” he added.
In a second, carried out weeks later in Chile, another nine people were arrested and three more were charged, “with the operational branch of the export part of the organization considered dismantled,” according to the Spanish Police.
rml (efe, policia.es)
