Kirsty Mckenzie
MORE than six tonnes of hashish have been seized by the Guardia Civil in a huge Costa del Sol drug bust.
Operation Gunpowder saw 40 people arrested from an international crime gang dedicated to selling vast amounts of drugs across Europe.
Some 31 properties were raided, uncovering six tonnes of hashish, 25 luxury stolen cars, 17,250 packs of tobacco and more than €268,000 in cash.
Two short weapons, a shotgun, as well as a drone and communication devices were also recovered.
The operation began in 2020, when the gang was first detected in Malaga.
Last April the Guardia Civil Guard found 2,675 kilos of hashish in a nursery. In that operation, two people were arrested and six vehicles that had been previously stolen were recovered.
From there cops discovered that branches of the organisation spanned all across the Costa del Sol and whose function was to cultivate and process large quantities of marijuana in Gibraltar that they later transported to Spain and sold throughout the national territory and across the continent.
The organisation had a network of around a dozen “nurseries” between the towns of San Roque in Cadiz, La Linea and Manilva.
The group smuggled tobacco and drugs using small inflatable boats to meet high-powered narco boats that crossed the Strait of Gibraltar.
Once the hashish and tobacco arrived in Spain it was guarded in different locations in Malaga and Cadiz, waiting to be transported across Europe.
The operation, in which over 300 officers were involved, included raids La Linea, San Roque, Algeciras, Manilva and Malaga.
In one of the searches, around €50,000 in cash was found in the school bag belonging to the daughter of one of the suspects and later another €150,000 was found under the mattress in a bedroom, which the owner claimed were his ‘savings’.
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