The National Police and the Customs Surveillance Service have located in an attic in Chipiona (Cádiz) an operational radar and a thermal camera of military origin with which a gang of drug traffickers controlled every step of the security forces in the Strait to introduce without problems large amounts of hashish.
Operation Saline has revealed how it was possible that, despite the great coastal surveillance, the gliders could easily avoid the police, guards and customs officers and slip into the Guadalete river until they docked without being seen in the drug nurseries of El Puerto de Santa Maria.
A total of 10 people have been arrested and 3,120 grams of hashish and another radar that the detainees were supposedly going to install at another point on the coast to be more efficient have been seized.
The operation began in April 2022, after the discovery of several boats docked in the Guadalete and others stored in industrial warehouses, "all of them with clear indications of being used for the trafficking of narcotic substances", as reported this morning by the National Police through a statement.
In this same phase, a half-sunken boat was found near the mouth, with 29 bales of hashish.
In the second phase, 75 bundles of the same drug were seized, as well as two inflatable boats.
These two blows were dealt on August 8 and November 1, and involved an accumulated cache of more than three tons of hashish.
Subsequent investigations led to the arrest of seven people and the search of premises and homes in El Puerto de Santa María, Jerez de la Frontera and Chipiona.
It was in one of those searches where the police found "a complete, operational and functional radar installed in an attic in the town of Chipiona", which the drug traffickers used "to control ships and aircraft of the anti-drug trafficking services." .
It is a Simrad brand device, of the type that is usually installed in recreational boats, which can cost between 8,000 and 2,500 euros, depending on the model.
The gang had put a thermal camera of military origin at full capacity, which they used to "surveillance the actions of patrol boats of the police forces," the note underlines.
Those responsible for the radar could control all coastal movements from the living room, with access to the terrace with excellent views of the sea as it is on the beachfront.
The police assure that the gang already had a second radar in their possession, in this case of the B&G brand, to be installed shortly in a new location, to maximize surveillance of the Strait.
Three other people have been arrested, in Jerez de la Frontera, in this last phase of the operation.
