Thirty people have been arrested in Belgium as part of an investigation targeting a network of cocaine and hashish traffickers, which also led to seven searches in Spain, said Wednesday the prosecutor's office of the Belgian city of Antwerp (north).
The Belgian and Spanish police conducted about forty searches in both countries. The prosecutor's office did not say whether those made in Spain had also led to arrests.
Suspicions of corruption
Last year Belgian police uncovered cocaine trafficking in a restaurant in the Antwerp district of Deurne frequented by Albanians. The latter had "close contacts" with a Spaniard residing in Brussels, whose investigation showed that he directed an international traffic, said the prosecutor's office in a statement. The seven searches carried out in southern Spain targeted relatives of the man presented as the main suspect.
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In this country, the police also went to a construction site suspected of being used for money laundering, the statement said. In addition to firearms, ammunition, bulletproof vests, luxury watches, "thirteen cars and a mobile home", the operation resulted in the seizure of 1.3 kg of hashish and 8 kg of cocaine.
In Belgium, where searches have been carried out in Deurne, Bruges, Mechelen and several municipalities in Brussels, employees of the port of Antwerp are suspected of having allowed themselves to be bribed to facilitate cocaine deliveries. The investigation also identified the alleged supplier of false passports and driver's licenses used by the trafficking network.
