This vast operation, in which police forces from around ten countries participated over three years, constitutes a “major blow” against this “criminal network involved in large-scale drug trafficking”, underlined in a press release. European police agency based in The Hague.
It made it possible to “fall” this entire “cartel”, whose leaders – originally from the Balkans – were based in Turkey and Dubai, she adds.
According to Europol, the final phase of this operation began with the discovery in August 2023 by the Spanish Civil Guard of 700 kilos of cocaine in a boat off the Canary Islands, crewed by Croatian and Italian nationals.
Based on the analysis of communications and exchanges of information with other police forces, the investigators made the link with previous seizures, which made it possible to trace the sponsors, members of a nebula crime of the Balkans.
It was a “powerful structure”, with “the capacity to transport tons and tons of cocaine throughout the world”, detailed, during a press conference, Óscar Esteban Remacha, head of the service of the fight against drug trafficking of the Civil Guard.
According to Europol, forty people were arrested in total in connection with this affair, including two senior Croatian officials of the network, arrested at the end of 2023 in Istanbul. The last four arrests took place on Wednesday in Spain.
Among these four people is a 40-year-old man, arrested near Marbella, a seaside resort popular with drug traffickers. According to an AFP journalist who attended the operation, he was arrested at his home by around ten heavily armed members of the Civil Guard.
According to investigators, this vast network sent the drugs from South America by boat to “logistics hubs in West Africa and the Canary Islands” then to distribution centers “in Belgium, Croatia, Germany, in Italy and Spain.
According to Europol, eight tonnes of cocaine were recovered by the police during various operations carried out over the past three years against this network. Numerous assets have also been seized or frozen, with a total value of several tens of millions of euros.
“This is one of the biggest operations against the Balkan cartels so far,” Tomislav Stanuk, anti-drugs officer of the Croatian police, underlined during the press conference, recalling that these cartels were made up of “numerous cells” characterized by their violence.
“Worldwide production of cocaine” is currently “skyrocketing,” recalled Robert Fay, head of Europol’s narcotics department, saying he was concerned. “Attacks, murders, professional assassinations and shootings take place almost every day in the European Union,” linked to this trafficking, he added.
