massive haul of two tons of cocaine in a Civil Guard operation which has smashed an international drugs gang and arrested 34 people from five countries

The Interior Ministry has announced a massive haul of two tons of cocaine in a Civil Guard operation which has smashed an international drugs gang and arrested 34 people from five countries.

Their nationalities are given as 27 Spaniards, 4 Colombians, an Italian, a Dutch national, and a final suspect from Britain. Two of the arrests were made in Morocco, while the rest were in Spain. 101 properties with a total value of more than 3 million € have been embargoed, and 39 vehicles, 500 mobile phone cards, 15 computers, 14 hard discs, and 35,000 € in cash have been seized.

It’s understood that 15 properties were searched in Valencia and Alicante. The investigation began in April 2010 and was carried out with the cooperation of police from Colombia, Morocco, Italy, Holland, Belgium and Britain.

Wednesday’s press release described the group as well organised, with the infrastructure to bring large quantities of cocaine into different Spanish ports, hidden inside containers, for distribution in different parts of Spain and other European countries.

The Ministry said the gang members also used violence, both within Spain and in Colombia and other European countries, against other members of the organisation, threatening them with death or kidnapping them as a guarantee in their drug trafficking operations or to cover losses suffered in security forces operations. The Ministry said a Spaniard who was kidnapped by paramilitaries in the Colombian had to pay a large ransom for his release.

The two tons of cocaine were seized from the network in a number of operations in Spain and abroad over the course of the past year.