The Civil Guard dismantled an international drug-trafficking network based in Malaga province and arrested 15 suspected members.[1] The detainees were accused of drug-trafficking, criminal-organisation membership, forgery, unlawful weapons possession and money laundering.[2] All of the detainees were remanded in prison by court order, and two international arrest warrants were issued for two other fugitive members of the group.[2]

Officers seized 3,947 kg of hashish in the operation, described as nearly four tonnes.[2] The operation also netted 12,450 euros in cash, a sailboat, a firearm, ten vehicles, three frequency jammers, satellite and mobile phones and computer equipment.[1] After bringing the hashish into Malaga province, the network hid it in two so-called primary nurseries in Manilva and San Pedro de Alcantara, then moved it by high-speed Go-Fast cars to a secondary stash house in a rural part of Utrera, in Sevilla province, before trucking it on to other European countries.[2] In September investigators boarded an Italian-flagged sailboat on the high seas and arrested its two Italian crew members, seizing 1,072 kg of hashish resin.[2]

The investigation began the previous March, when officers learned of the Malaga-based organisation’s complex infrastructure for receiving large quantities of Moroccan hashish and distributing it across Europe.[1] To avoid suspicion at police checkpoints, the organisation used people in their sixties driving rental cars, including a 67-year-old caught in September with 107 kg of hashish and a 70-year-old caught in October with seven bales weighing 272 kg.[2]