The Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico was attempting to sell 1.8 tons of crystal meth in Europe when Spanish police said on Thursday that they had made the “biggest-ever seizure” of the drug in the nation’s history.
During the raid in the eastern province of Alicante, police detained five individuals, one of them was a Mexican who oversaw the cartel’s Spanish operations, according to a statement.
Chief of the police’s organized crime and drug trafficking branch, Antonio Martinez Duarte, told reporters, “This is the biggest-ever seizure of crystal meth in Spain and the second largest in Europe.”
“Among those arrested is a Mexican citizen linked to the Sinaloa Cartel,” he continued.
Although he withheld his name, he said the suspect was in charge of obtaining the drugs in Spain and redistributing them throughout Europe.
Martínez claims that the group stored the methamphetamine shipments they had smuggled in by using houses in remote sections of the Valencia region. Then, they sent the drugs to other countries in Europe by using trucks that had false bottoms.
🚩Desarticulada la infraestructura en España del cártel de “Sinaloa” con la intervención de 1.800 kilos de metanfetamina, la segunda mayor aprehensión de #Europa
🚩Operaban desde #Tenerife, #Madrid, #Valencia y #Alicante y han sido detenidas 5 personas pic.twitter.com/YUiu2HtJeD
— Policía Nacional (@policia) May 16, 2024
On social media, police posted footage of themselves taking out bags of what appeared to be cocaine that were concealed in fake car bottoms and machinery.
Despite the arrest of its founder Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and his son, the Sinaloa Cartel is still one of Mexico’s biggest, most violent, and oldest criminal organizations.
Both have been detained and extradited to the US. A federal judge dismissed “El Chapo”‘s plea last month to have phone conversations and visits with his young daughters.
In the course of the operation, five automobiles, papers, a gun, cash, and three Spaniards and a Romanian were apprehended by the police.
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However, Martinez Duarte stated that authorities think it was a one-time trafficking operation and that “Mexican organizations are not permanently based” in Spain.
He clarified, “These organizations send a trusted person who carries out the operation in line with their interests,” and that after it is finished, he returns home.
It was planned for the drugs that were found to be sent to central Europe.
Despite being a major drug gateway to Europe, Spain rarely has synthetic drugs seized from its borders because most traffickers deal in cocaine and cannabis.
Authorities in Spain detained 20 persons and seized 11 tons of cocaine that had been concealed inside shipping containers in December. Nine months prior to that, authorities in northwest Spain had refloated a homemade semi-submersible boat, which they believed to be a “narco sub” that was being used to transmit cocaine.
