Lab set up by South American using false identity
Portugal’s Judicial Police (PJ) have dismantled a drug laboratory in Santa Maria da Feira, in the northern region of Aveiro, and detained three people suspected of being associated with its activity.
According to the country’s main criminal investigation agency in a statement released today, the investigation managed to “locate an isolated warehouse in Santa Maria da Feira, in which a “laboratory of considerable dimensions was operating, for the transformation of coca paste into cocaine hydrochloride”.
As a result of the investigation, “three suspects were detained for offences of aggravated drug trafficking, criminal association, money laundering and forgery of documents” – two foreigners and one Portuguese – who will be brought before judicial authorities for questioning and the application of coercive measures.
Speaking to the Lusa news agency, the head of the Braga PJ Rogério Magalhães said that the arrested trio were aged between 54 and 59. Two of them have criminal records for drug trafficking, for which they have both served jail terms, “in Portugal and abroad”.
According to Magalhães, the investigation “is recent” and he believes that with the steps taken and the detentions made, the activities of this criminal group will have ceased”.
The three will be taken before a court in Guimarães today for their first questioning and the application of bail measures.
“The start of the investigation centred on the illicit activity carried out by a foreign national” who allegedly sold drugs “using a false identity, with which he registered a commercial company”, said the PJ statement.
The man “was using apparently legal schemes to make use of resources and rent spaces where, in a concealed and apparently legal way, he could carry out the activity of international acquisition and transformation into a narcotic product”.
During the PJ’s searches of homes and warehouses, “abundant material was found, hundreds of litres of chemicals, benzines, acids and others, as well as a whole structure and paraphernalia capable of producing between five and 10 kilograms of cocaine in a continuous daily process”.
“The operation also led to the seizure of coca paste and cocaine, in a quantity estimated at around 15 kilograms, enough for 75,000 individual doses, as well as dozens of kilograms of precursors and preparation substances”, the statement added..
The police operation, dubbed Cristal Lab, was carried out by the Criminal Investigation Department of Braga, with the collaboration of the Northern Directorate, with the presence of experts from the Scientific Police Laboratory and the collaboration of the GNR.
Source material: LUSA/ Correio da Manhã
