Four members of a Colombian family were arrested in Alicante by the National Police for allegedly being part of a medium-scale cocaine trafficking gang that distributed the substance using concealed vehicles. They seized 2.3 kilograms of cocaine from a “caleta” (hiding place) on the floor of a car.
The Alicante Provincial Judicial Police Brigade’s Drugs and Organised Crime Unit (UDYCO) initiated the seizure as part of an investigation last January. Agents from UDYCO gathered information about a group of Colombian drug traffickers suspected of medium-scale cocaine distribution in the province of Alicante.
The inquiry found that the group was capable of distributing one to ten kilograms of cocaine to other traffickers, prompting the surveillance of a suspect with a prior drug trafficking record.
Drug transaction
The inquiry into this suspect revealed two men with whom he had contact. In February, they discovered a suspected drug transaction and placed both men under surveillance. The inquiry was initially unsuccessful, but at the end of June, while conducting another operation in Alicante targeting home burglaries during the Hogueras festival, officers noticed the two suspects in a car with French license plates.
The police sought assistance from their Citizen Security colleagues, and officers from the Motorcycle Group went to Calle México in Alicante, where the car was parked, and interviewed the two occupants to identify them.
The officers saw the two men’s anxiety, and their reactions heightened their suspicions, so they conducted a thorough search of the car, which had French license plates.
When they examined the front end, they discovered that the floors in the driver and passenger compartments were damp. The officers removed the driver’s floor mat and lifted it, revealing that the car had been “hidden” and a hiding space had been established in the bodywork.
The hiding area was under the driver’s feet, and when the police opened it, they discovered two packages of cocaine. One weighed 1,164 grams, the other 1,159. The seized substances are worth roughly €70,000 when sold retail per gram and €139,000 when sold per kilogram.
After discovering the cocaine, the National Police arrested the car’s passengers, 43 and 20, both of Colombian descent. Several mobile phones and €4,530 were seized from them, and both were sent to police headquarters for examination.
Investigators from the UDYCO also investigated their Alicante house. The search of the house turned up nothing relevant to the investigation, but the police arrested two women, the wife and daughter of one of the men apprehended with the drugs.
Officers stopped a second vehicle with French registration plates near the house. A daughter had used this car the day before, and she admitted to putting a bag with unknown items in it.
The car was taken to police headquarters and extensively investigated, but no additional narcotics were found.
The two women were released after appearing at the Provincial Police Station, but the two men were transported to Alicante Duty Court.
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