Cocaine en-route for “extraction, processing and packaging laboratory”
Portugal’s PJ police have helped Spanish counterparts dismantle one of the largest cocaine extraction, processing and packaging laboratories in the region in Badajoz. Seven people have been arrested.
The operation took place last week following an investigation that began with the alert given to the Spanish authorities by the PJ’s National Unit for Combating Drug Trafficking.
The PJ became aware of “the possibility that a truck loaded with chemical products could enter Spanish territory, from Portugal via Badajoz”, the PJ’s press office has explained.
Both police forces then began a “discreet surveillance operation on the A-5 motorway” in Spain, where they located the truck entering the “El Nevero” industrial complex, in Badajoz.
There, the truck unloaded a “large quantity of drums, with chemical products”.
All the suspects now under arrest had been adopted “extreme security measures”, using different devices to avoid their geolocation, says the PJ source.
During house searches mounted as a result of the investigation, police found around 46 kilos of cocaine packaged and ready-for-sale, as well as 20 kilos of cocaine in the decantation process and more than a hundred drums with chemical substances (acetones).
Frequency blockers, tracker detectors and several cell phones were also found, as well as nine high-end vehicles.
The seven detainees, all men, aged between 25 and 47, some with criminal records, have been handed over to the competent judicial authority and are being held in preventive detention.
Source: LUSA
