The Civil Guard, in collaboration with the Belgian Federal Police and the Dutch Police, within the framework of the Austral-Coles operation, has stopped in the Malaga municipality of Marbella two heads of a criminal organization that trafficked cocaine on a large scaleusing for this the use of cargo containers by sea.
The organization composed of Belgian and Dutch citizens acquired the drug in Brazil and later transported it to ports in Belgium and Holland, through its concealment between the legal cargo of large tonnage merchandise containersas reported by the armed institute in a statement.
The operation began in 2020, when the Belgian Federal Police and the Dutch Police opened a joint investigation into one orOrganization responsible for large shipments of cocaine. The recipients of the drug were a Belgian and two Dutch companies.
Thus, the first of the shipments of 556 kilograms, was seized in Brazil on March 13, 2020, hidden in legal cargo of soybean meal. Later, in the Port of Antwerp (Belgium) on January 26, 2021, hidden in legal cargo of coffee beans, 2,300 kilograms were seized. And finally, two other shipments, weighing 586 and 409 kilos, respectively, were seized in the Port of Rotterdam on April 10, 2020.
As a result of the investigations, it was possible to identify two of the organizers of said shipments who could have their residence on the Costa del Sol, for which the European police requested the collaboration of the Civil Guard to proceed with the investigation. location of said personyes
Agents located one of them in a luxury home in an exclusive development in Marbella, so he was arrested. Later, he also managed to locate and arrest the other leader on the run from the Belgian Authorities, in another luxury home in the town of Marbella.
Thus, and having identified the rest of the members of the organization in Belgium and the Netherlands, we proceeded to entry and registration at two addresses in the province of Malaga, At the same time, the police authorities of the other countries carried out seven other searches simultaneously.
Total nine people have been arrested, among which were the two leaders of the organization. In addition, it has been achieved seize more than 3.8 tons of cocainethree high-end vehicles, numerous mobile terminals with relevant information, memory devices of interest for research and abundant documentation for analysis.