Spanish police have announced the seizure of 5.6 tons of cocaine worth over 340 million euros in the port of Valencia. This is the largest quantity seized in the last four years in the country. Police discovered the drugs on a container ship from South America that had just arrived in the Spanish port. This was announced by the Ministry of the Interior.
The investigations had begun in 2021, following the moves of a criminal organization that introduced drugs into the country under the cover of a trade in fruit and legumes. The police did not specify when the operation took place or from which country the container ship came from. The announcement comes two days after Europol’s dismantling of a “super cartel” that controlled about a third of the cocaine trade in six European countries including Spain, where the Civil Guard arrested 13 people as part of the coordinated operation with other police. The cartel transported cocaine from Panama to Europe via the Iberian ports of Valencia, Barcelona and Algeciras. Spain’s proximity to Morocco, an important producer of hashish, and its relations with Latin America, where cocaine comes from, make it one of the main ports of entry for drugs into the Old Continent.