Operation “Ghost Passengers” focuses on trafficking through Lisbon airport
PJ judicial police have celebrated another ‘coup’ in foiling drug traffickers using Lisbon airport.
This time, in Operation Ghost Passengers, inspectors were able to arrest five men “in flagrante delicto”, collecting suitcases containing 780,000 individual doses of cocaine.
Subsequent house searches yielded around €30,000 in cash, a prohibited firearm, various documents etc.
The men have already been presented before a magistrate to hear ‘bail terms’ while the investigation continues.
Their arrests followed collaboration between the PJ’s national unit for the combat of drug trafficking and PSP airport police.
In the course of the operation, “it was possible to ascertain that the detainees, carrying plane tickets they hadn’t used, entered Lisbon airport with the intention of removing two suitcases containing cocaine from the luggage belt, coming from a flight in Latin America”, explained the PJ in a statement.
In other words, this was the Portuguese ‘end’ of a network that sends luggage (packed with drugs) on scheduled flights without ‘passengers’ ever having to check the baggage in through the normal channels.
PJ investigators explain “it was possible to see that two of the detainees, under the supervision and control of the remaining three, who were also carrying out counter-surveillance manoeuvres, collected two suitcases which they transported outside the airport, where they were eventually intercepted”.
The five men (nationalities not given) are aged between 28 and 42.
Trafficking networks are increasingly being ‘rumbled’ when they transport drugs by sea, hence attempts to carry ‘smaller quantities’ into the country via air, which are also coming unstuck.
Source material: LUSA
