Detectives believe they have arrested two gangland leaders – one Dutch and the other Belgian – behind a major cocaine trafficking route from Brazil to Europe via Rotterdam and Antwerp.
The arrests follow an international surveillance operation that has been in place since 2020.
An intelligence assessment last year by the EU law enforcement agency Europol said the more northerly route between South America and the two high-volume North Sea container ports in the Netherlands and Belgium respectively had replaced traditional routes through Spain and Portugal.
The switch away from the Iberian peninsula was sparked by a newly competitive Colombian market open again for global business following the disbandment in 2016 of the Marxist-Leninist rebel group, Farc, which previously controlled the bulk of drugs sales domestically and overseas.
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In April, an important criminal link with Colombia was severed when a Dutch trafficker known by the pseudonym “Piet Costa” was sentenced to 15 years in jail. There has since been increased focus on the gang behind the highly active Brazilian connection.
That breakthrough came last weekend. In raids under the jurisdiction of Operation Austral, heavily armed officers of the Guardia Civil in Spain searched two luxury villas near Marbella on the Costa del Sol, and detained two men described as “important figures” in European cocaine-running from Brazil.
One of those arrested was Dutch and the other Belgian. Seven others were arrested in related operations in the Netherlands and Belgium.
The highly publicised Marbella raids were on two houses in a wealthy neighbourhood of the city. The authorities posted an official video on YouTube under the heading “Capos Detenidos” (bosses detained), showing their progress through the premises.
“The police raid houses in rich areas every week, but I’ve never seen anything like this”, said a spokesman. “They had every luxury but they were also set up for doing business. One alone had extensive offices, three saunas and a court for playing the racquet game, padel.”
The searches also yielded 2.8 tonnes of cocaine and a number of high-end cars but, most importantly, computers and large quantities of digital files which forensics experts are expected to begin examining this week – and which may lead to further arrests.
Police began tracking the gang in May 2020 when a relatively modest shipment of 556 kilos of cocaine was found hidden in a consignment of soya flour leaving Brazil. The next shipment was much larger, 2.3 tonnes, intercepted in coffee beans in Antwerp, with two more since in Rotterdam.
Surveillance led them to one of the men who moved constantly around Spain but who more recently seemed to settle in Marbella. It was then that the second “important figure” came into the picture living nearby.
According to Europol’s head of operations, Julia Viedma, such are the multibillion-euro profits generated by cocaine that about 40 per cent of the criminal gangs across Europe are involved in trafficking.
