The port of Malaga still does not have a scanner to detect any anomaly among the hundreds of containers that pass through the port every week. This is why cocaine continues to be introduced there without further control as customs risk management and police intelligence work.
Until September, 155,000 containers passed through the port docks on board the 1,128 merchant ships that docked in Malaga, of which 20,285 containers were unloaded.
Searching for narcotics in this sea of goods is an almost impossible task without a scannerbecause due to the logistical tasks of the port itself and the market, everything is done so that the departure of essential products to citizens is not excessively delayed.
This is understandable since maritime transport of goods represents 77% of international transport in Spain. With these stock volumes, therefore The sea is chosen as the best way to transport cocaine.
This week it was reported that a new operation against international drug trafficking affecting Malaga. 675 kilos of coca arrived at the capital’s port from the port of Manzanillo in Panama hidden among pineapples, a classic.
Bananas or pineapples, drug traffickers try not to innovate in this area. The cans of pineapple clearly indicated that the product was Panamanian, the sweetest variant and one of the best paid on the market. As for fruits, they are the preferred product of criminal groups to mask drug trafficking.
Companies are created to import them because their volume in tonnes is generally considerable and It is relatively easy to hide a certain amount of medication in a container.
Imagine If they are carrying 32 tons of different products and only 675 kilos of them are drugs. If it is well hidden, it is complicated to detect it in case drug traffickers get dirty. In other cases, it is simply at the entrance to the container.
Regarding Panama, this year its strategic use to deliver drugs to Spain has had a great influence. In August, customs surveillance seized 1,000 kilos of cocaine also hidden among pineapples coming from Panama.. Coincidentally, the boxes used on this occasion are the same ones found this time in Malaga.
And in October, Panamanian authorities detected a stash of 4.4 tonnes of cocaine in a container which was in transit through one of its ports coming from Guayaquil (Ecuador) and which was going to be unloaded in Barcelona.
On the subject at hand, The medicine was destined for an industrial warehouse in Estepona to be received and then distributed in Europe. Three Spaniards, a Briton and a Colombian were arrested on site. And they were arrested in flagrante delicto thanks to the international collaboration with the Colombian authorities, who warned of the activities of the companies involved in this transaction, all with latent suspicions of drug trafficking.
Thanks to this information, the investigating court no. 2 of Estepona, the place where the cache was going to be received, authorized the carrying out of a controlled delivery of cocaine. This means that The container would be monitored by customs surveillance officers and the national police throughout the journey. since he left the port of Malaga for the ship in Estepona. In the video distributed by the police and customs, we can see that the truck was even followed by a helicopter.
The fact that a Briton and a Colombian were arrested suggests that the latter was the guarantor of the operation for the criminal organization of the cafe, owner of part of the drugs. The presence of the British suggests that some of the cocaine would end up in England and that he would be another guarantor. The three Spaniards are generally just pawns of the criminal organization.
Organized crime is once again showing its paw as The drug trafficking clans took a short truce to settle scores among themselves in the event of unpaid debts or overthrows. But almost always, when there is a foreclosure, someone has to pay. And if you don’t have it in cash, the problems we see later will take the form of shootouts.
