MADRID: The UK nationals arrested were five men from Liverpool – aged 34, 59, 47, 31 and 47 – a 41-year-old man from Kingston-upon-Thames and a 50-year-old man from Thornbury.
The narcotics were seized in the northwestern region of Galicia but were bound for the south, where they were awaited by a gang of British smugglers in the Costa del Sol, police said in a statement.
“We are talking about two very important organizations”, El Pais’ police source said. The video shows Spanish police uncovering vast amounts of cocaine at a warehouse in Galicia, as well as a firearm and one million euro (£730,000) in cash.
“The British nationals are suspected of being the buyers of the drugs, the Dutch are believed to be the sellers while the Spaniards were detained for transporting the cocaine”.
The Iberian Peninsula is considered the main gateway to Europe for cocaine from Latin America. Of those arrested, eight are British, two are Dutch and two are Spanish.
British Costa del Sol-based villains became major players in the multi-billion-pound drugs trafficking industry operating through Spain after early forays into cannabis smuggling by the first waves of gangsters in the late seventies and early eighties.
Last month, police said they had seized 40 pallets made out of 1.4 tonnes of compressed cocaine made to look like wood that arrived on a shipping container from Colombia.
In November a Brit described by Spanish police as Europe’s number one drugs trafficker was arrested at his luxury villa on the Costa del Sol. He was suspected of involvement in such imports on a flight from Caracas to Paris, of 1.3 tons of cocaine seized at Roissy airport in 2013.
