The NCA has helped their partners arrest 16 people directly related to a
important criminal organisation based in Galicia, dedicated to
the introduction of large consignments of drugs via
Maritime in the Iberian Peninsula
They used fishing boats that simulated legal operations of
fishing off African coasts, highlighting the relationship
directly from Galician organisations with the so-called “African route” for cocaine.
The Civil Guard, in what has been called operation SUGAR BROWN, has completely dismantled one of the
largest Galician organisations, dedicated both to the introduction of
large quantities of cocaine and heroin in national territory,
Police intercepted a fishing boat with 3,300 kilograms of cocaine in its waters of the Atlantic Ocean, bound for an undetermined point on the coast of Galicia.
Those responsible for this important consignment of cocaine belong to a criminal organisation based in Galicia.
The narcotic boats simulated fishing campaigns in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, close to the African coast.
The investigation began at the beginning of 2022, having been able to prove who would be the people who would manage this entire criminal network, having identified all the members of the organisation and its criminal dynamics, having reeled off all the logistical steps that would culminate in the introduction of the narcotic finally apprehended.
This important operation confirms this international drug trafficking route as one of the routes most used by large drug trafficking organisations, considering it one of the most “safe” and with the greatest guarantee of success for their interests.
In the same way, the Civil Guard has been detecting for some time how certain Galician organisations have increased
gradually its infrastructures in this sense to introduce
drugs through this itinerary.
In fact, during the development of this investigation, it has been possible to monitor the movement of some members of the investigated organisation to Senegal with the aim of personally organising and coordinating this shipment of cocaine, taking charge of both the freight of the ship and the hiring of the crew, having foreseen in the same way, which boats would go out to meet this ship as it approached its destination. This being one of the rare occasions in which the investigators have been able to prove all the efforts and meetings held that would have culminated in the introduction of a huge amount of cocaine into national territory.
The agents were also able to find out how the investigated group had sophisticated means to transport the drug through different Spanish provinces, which allowed them to dispense with other shuttle vehicles that would warn of possible police checks, by having sophisticated concealment methods in double bottoms. hydraulics in the vehicles they used, to which was added the use of encrypted messaging between the communications of its members.
Coordination of capacities of the Civil Guard by land, sea and air.
The course of the investigation allowed the identification of the ship that would transport the narcotic, as well as those investigated that would carry it out, which motivated the Civil Guard to carry out a deployment of means and coordination of capacities, in order to locate said vessel in the Ocean Atlántico, using means of the Air Service and the Maritime Service of the Civil Guard, who carried out an exhaustive search. It should be noted that these tasks were fruitful on December 18, when once located, agents of the Special Intervention Unit (UEI) and the Maritime Service of the Civil Guard, boarded the ship chartered by the Galician organization to the north of the Canary Islands .
