11 tonnes of Albanian mafia cocaine seized on Spanish coast

Eleven tonnes of cocaine imported by Albanian criminal organisations have been seized in Spain in two operations, the Spanish police announced on Tuesday, highlighting the importance of Balkan mafias in drug trafficking.

“In one week, we have managed to remove 11 tonnes of cocaine from the market”, Antonio Martínez Duarte, head of the Central Brigade of the Spanish police’s Drugs and Organised Crime Unit, told a press conference in Madrid.

The drugs seized came from Colombia via Ecuador and were found in containers that had arrived in the ports of Vigo, in Galicia, and Valencia.

In the first operation, police in Vigo seized 7.5 tonnes of cocaine concealed in frozen tuna fillets. This was the largest seizure ever made in Galicia, a region that has long served as a gateway to Europe for cocaine from Latin America.

The second operation, in Valencia, resulted in the seizure of 3.4 tonnes of cocaine hidden in the double bottoms of maritime containers.

Twenty people were arrested in these two operations between late November and early December. The majority were Albanians, but they also included a Colombian, a Dominican and several Spaniards, including a Galician entrepreneur who used his fish import business to organise the transport of the drugs.

“The two operations have nothing to do with each other. The only link between them lies in the fact that we believe that the organisations behind them are of Albanian origin”, said Duarte, emphasising that the mafias of south-eastern Europe, nicknamed the “Balkan cartel”, were of “very close interest to all European police forces”.

“The Albanian mafias have been monopolising the transport of drugs for some time. Not just in Europe, but also in Latin America. These organisations have established themselves in the place of origin (Latin America) and control the transport of drugs from start to finish”, he added.

According to Commissioner Carlos Gómez, head of the Central Drug Squad, control of cocaine trafficking in Europe has changed hands.

“We have gone from hermetic, closed organisations, like the old Colombian and Mexican organisations that controlled the whole process, to much more open, atomised, internationalised organisations that go so far as to create criminal cooperatives to share resources”, he explained.