Two Madeiran brothers who used to live in Venezuela are accused of having run a drug-running scam using the guise of a perfectly legal import business.
Within the packing of ovens, fridges and washing machines shipped into the country were hundreds of kilos of cocaine.
Police foiled the scam on Tuesday, recovering a shipment of 340 kilos of the drug concealed within cardboard packing material.
The men, along with two others, were due to be presented before a judge to set bail conditions as we went to press.
The investigation is now focussed on trying to determine how long this operation will have been in place.
Police first got whiff of it “around 10 months ago”, say reports, when a 19-kilo haul of cocaine was discovered in a disused discotheque in Montijo, in the borough of Setúbal.
“Very quickly it was possible to realise this pointed to the existence of an international trafficking ring”, reports tabloid Correio da Manhã.
Yesterday’s arrests were made at a warehouse in Santarém and while other addresses were in Portalegre and Viseu were the subject of police searches.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
