Hard setback to drug trafficking in Valencia. The Anti-Drug Team (EDOA) of the Civil Guard has arrested twelve alleged members of a criminal organization dedicated to importing large quantities of cocaine to the city port. Among them, there are three stevedores who will have collaborated when introducing up to two tons of this narcotic substance in Spain.
The group of agents from the Meritorious Organized Crime and Anti-Drug Team and members of the UCO, with the assistance of trained dogs, carried out a dozen searches in different towns such as Valencia, Picanya, Alboraya, Chiva, Loriguilla and Manises.
The detained stevedores, apparently, are dedicated to extracting the cocaine caches of those arriving from South American ports along with different types of legal merchandise, according to the investigations of the Civil Guard.
According to the newspaper "Las Provincias", these port workers and the leaders of the criminal organization are accused of introducing large amounts of cocaine in recent years in Valencia, of which some shipments were seized and others were. successful dealers to other drug traffickers.
How to operate the organization.
To carry out this criminal activity, those arrested use an encrypted instant messaging system as a method of internal communication, with the aim of agreeing deliveries and warning of the eventual presence of police officers.
Likewise, the gang used the well-known method of the 'lost hook', which consists of concealing large quantities of narcotic substances in the port through containers with legal merchandise, without the knowledge of the exporter or the importer, with the aim of withdrawing the charge. before it reaches the beginning of the route at the final destination.
To do this, criminal gangs usually have longshoremen and other port workers among their staff in order to know where the drug is and to be able to get it out of the port more easily and quickly.
One of the main suspects was arrested and tried in 2017 for participating in another police operation against drug trafficking. This is a man with a criminal record who previously ran a sports gym in the Valencian town of Quart de Poblet, who obtained provisional freedom four years ago.
According to this sentence, the attempt to traffic almost 300 kilos of cocaine that the accused and six others took out of the port of Valencia and smuggled into an industrial warehouse located in an industrial estate in the town of Ribarroja del Turia was considered proven.
