Seven people have been arrested for smuggling 2,500,000 cigarettes and 5,200 litres of nitrous oxide, also called ‘laughing gas’, across borders. Six of them were caught in Alicante and one in Malaga.
People from Eastern Europe and Spain made up this criminal cell. They used a semi-trailer vehicle to move the cigarettes and an industrial warehouse in Malaga to store the gas.
The operation started last May with help from the Customs Surveillance Service. This was done by Spanish National Police personnel, along with police officers from Croatia, Montenegro, and France, in line with the European Union’s Security Strategy.
They were doing legal business trips to France and other Central European nations, which made it hard to catch them. But officers saw that on certain excursions, they left holes in the trailers to put in illegal products, which they later covered up with legal goods.
After watching the network for several months, authorities stopped a truck in the province of Alicante in September as several members of the network were unloading it.
The Police say that inside they found 10 pallets with 128,000 packets of illegal cigarettes worth 753,466 euros on the market. This was more than 575,000 euros in tax fraud.
At that point, six people who were protecting and unloading the car were taken into custody.
At the same time, the person who planned the operation and owned the trucks was caught in the province of Malaga.
A check of his house and an industrial warehouse found 2,592 bottles of nitrous oxide, which is also called ‘laughing gas’. The total amount was 5,184 litres. They also took €2,100 in cash and €40,000 in fake bills throughout the operation.
The seven people who were detained were taken to the Duty Courts of Instruction in Alcoy and Malaga. There, five of them were told they would have to stay in jail until their trial.
The inquiry is still going on to find out where the seized products came from and how the transport company is linked to other illegal actions around the world.
Author: Derek Appleton
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