Dilip Kuner
SPANISH police have busted a ring of dope smugglers after 100 boxes of growth hormone were delivered to the wrong address.
The transport company blunder has led to seven arrests and 1.65 million doses of doping substances worth €1 million being seized by Catalan law enforcement agency Mossos d’Esquadra.
Police say the group acted as wholesalers, importing the drugs from Bulgaria, Romania and Greece for sale in gyms through a network of ‘retailing’ collaborators.
They offered quantity-based discounts for orders worth between €7,000 and €20,000.
They would dispatch the drugs from a warehouse which only the two heads of the gang had access to, which would be delivered to the homes of the collaborators who would then sell them on.
Following the delivery of drugs to the wrong address last July, the Mossos started an investigation.
This culminated in four raids in the Catalan towns of Sant Adria del Besos – where the main warehouse was located – Sabadell and Terrassa.
They discovered €19,000 cash at the home of the 35-year-old alleged leader of the gang, with the other searches uncovering proof of drugs shipments records and 40,000 boxes of 140 different types of pills and injectable substances.
These included 1.3 million units of anabolic and other injectable products, plus 31,000 doses of growth hormone.
Police say that evidence that doping substances were also counterfeited was found.
The seven detainees – five Spaniards, one Pakistani and one Moroccan – have been released by the courts while charges of drugs trafficking and counterfeiting are investigated.
