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Monika Skolimowska / dpa
In Germany and other European countries, emergency services took action against alleged members of an international drug gang.
The accused are said to have smuggled almost five tons of cocaine from South America into the Federal Republic, said the Berlin Public Prosecutor's Office.
Task forces searched more than 40 objects in Germany and abroad, including in the greater Berlin area, and carried out 14 arrest warrants.
In addition to the law enforcement authorities in Berlin and Dortmund, authorities in Latvia and Spain were also involved.
The investigation complex is directed against several alleged "logisticians" of cocaine traffic between Latin America and Europe as well as two alleged Colombian suppliers.
In addition, the cocaine users in Berlin were identified.
"A highly professional and widely ramified criminal structure"
In total, there are 28 suspects between the ages of 22 and 62 years.
Most of them have German citizenship, but Turkish, Greek, Iraqi, Georgian, Ukrainian and Latvian citizens are also said to have been involved.
Among other things, they are accused of trafficking in cocaine and money laundering.
According to the authorities, the investigations by the Federal Criminal Police Office go back to a case from November 2018. At that time, 690 kilograms of cocaine were seized in a shipping container in the port of Santos in Brazil, which was addressed to a company in Berlin. The BKA then uncovered “a highly professional and widely ramified structure of perpetrators”. By 2011 at the latest, the criminals are said to have joined forces to smuggle cocaine into the Federal Republic of Germany through bogus companies. The accused are said to have provided the logistics required for the transport of drugs under a false identity.
After the drug discovery in 2018, the gang initially went underground, according to the Attorney General.
However, it was suspected that the suspects wanted to set up various new transport routes via Colombia, Panama and Mexico to Europe in order to carry out large deliveries of cocaine to Europe.
"Today we broke through the supply chain with the arrest warrants and searches," said the chief prosecutor in charge, Georg Bauer.
Martina Link, Vice President of the Federal Criminal Police Office, described the mission as an "outstanding success".
bbr
