The Civil Guard has published the details of Operation Botafumeiro in which a priest from Don Benito (Badajoz) and his partner were arrested on Monday.
The two men were brought to justice on Monday, accused of being the alleged perpetrators of a crime against public health by trafficking drugs.
The priest has been released with charges, while the other detainee has been imprisoned without bail.
The investigations have determined that both received the narcotic substances by parcel, from other countries in the European Union, and that they subsequently distributed them among consumers in the region or sent them to different parts of Spain.
The investigation has been carried out over the last five months by the Organized Crime and Anti-Drug Team of the Civil Guard of Badajoz, after detecting how two residents from Dombeni were dedicating themselves to trafficking drugs from their own home, that of the priest.
According to reports, the alleged criminals received the substances by parcel for subsequent distribution and sale, dividing them into small quantities that, in turn, were sent to third parties to different parts of the country.
Most of this substance was for direct sale to consumers in the Don Benito region, who went to the vicinity of the home to buy it after agreeing on the safety measures to be adopted.
Some of the substances found in the priest's home. Civil Guard (EFE/Civil Guard)
Once all the information had been collected and in coordination with the Investigative Court 2 of Don Benito, last Monday, the agents, supported by twenty members of the Citizen Security Unit (Usecic), carried out the search of the home of the priest, where 2,100 grams of mephedrone were involved.
Also known as orthomephedrone, it is a designer recreational drug with stimulant effects similar to methamphetamine or MDMA, more commonly known as ecstasy, and of which around 8,400 doses could be obtained on the illicit market, according to the Civil Guard estimates.
It has been illegal in the EU since 2010.
Two precision scales, 3,370 euros allegedly obtained from the sale of the drug, and several blisters with sildenafil tablets, the active ingredient of Viagra, were also seized from the detainees.
On the other hand, the Civil Guard highlights that last Tuesday the agents also intercepted two parcel shipments that, once they were inspected, contained a total of 30 grams of the same narcotic substance.
The investigation remains open.
The priest is a native of Miajadas (Cáceres), he trained at the Plasencia seminary and had been in Don Benito for five years, where he arrived from Béjar (Salamanca).
His parishioners highlight that he was “very happy.”
There is hardly any information about the boyfriend, except that they both shared a flat.
At the moment, the church of San Sebastián, of which he is parish priest, is closed and there is no mass.
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