Spanish police announced Tuesday, December 14 that they had dismantled a network that smuggled "huge amounts" of cocaine and methamphetamine from Mexico to Europe, hidden in concrete blocks.
This net allowed the seizure in 2019, in the port of Rotterdam, of 2.5 tonnes of methamphetamine, the largest seizure of this drug ever carried out in Europe, said Spanish police.
Read also More than 200,000 people implicated each year for drug use and / or trafficking since 2016
The network, which was linked to the Mexican Beltran-Leyva cartel, "used an original method of smuggling the drug, which consisted in creating compartments hidden in concrete blocks, making it undetectable during checks," the statement said.
Once the blocks arrived in Spain, the gang extracted the drugs to ship to other European countries.
Police arrested 16 people in connection with the operation, which began in 2017 and was carried out in cooperation with Europol.
They also seized nearly 1.4 tonnes of cocaine and 17,000 liters of chemicals used to wash cocaine or produce synthetic drugs.
Spain's close links with its former colonies in Latin America, one of the main cocaine-producing regions, make it a prime entry point for drugs destined for Europe.