The Guardia Civil has arrested nine alleged members of a criminal organization that used home-made drones to transport hashish from Morocco, the armed institute reported on Wednesday. The plot had its base of operations in the city of Cadiz Alcalá de los Gazules (5,200 inhabitants), from where they flew planes at dawn to cross the strait at night and load up with drugs in the African country. Returning to the Peninsula, the drones released the packages in the area of Vejer de la Frontera and Tarifa, where they were located by members of the organization thanks to the use of geolocation systems, sound signals, fluorescent lights and night vision goggles. The operation involved eight of these ready-to-use drones and another 10 that would be adapted for this function.
That christened Operation Ruche began after the Civil Guard, in collaboration with the Royal Gendarmerie of Morocco, detected the flight of unidentified drones between the two countries. In all cases these were so-called fixed-wing drones with the ability to travel distances exceeding 200 kilometers. Investigations revealed that the people now detained threw the devices – up to a dozen at a time – from a secluded area in the countryside of the municipality of Alcalá de los Gazules. They did it at dawn to take advantage of the favorable weather conditions and poor visibility. Thus, on days of low wind, the group launched continuous flights between Morocco and the province of Cadiz which allowed them to introduce up to 200 kilos of hashish in a single night.
Once loaded with drugs in Morocco, these sugar mills began their return flight. The drones had a mechanism that allowed them to release packages mid-flight when they reached the intended collection area. Subsequently, members of the organization in charge of recovering the hashish used night vision glasses to quickly locate the packages, on which fluorescent light elements were attached. The narcotic was subsequently transferred to rented rural houses which served as nurseries (in police jargon, places to hide drugs) until its subsequent distribution. Meanwhile the drones continued their flight to land back at the starting point.
The investigation revealed that the organization purchased the planes from companies of Asian origin and subsequently modified them in its workshop “to provide them with greater autonomy, resistance and load capacity”, underlines the Guardia Civil in a note. To do this, “they adapted the electronic systems and reinforced the fuselages with lightweight materials” to obtain “unique and highly efficient models for transporting drugs,” he adds. At the time of the arrest, the agents found 10 of these planes still in their original packaging and which, presumably, had been modified to expand the fleet used for trafficking.
During the investigation, officers managed to intercept a vehicle belonging to the organization on October 22, after a chase in which several officers were injured. Inside the car, the Guardia Civil seized 57.2 kilos of hashish brought to Spain via drones. Finally, last Monday, investigators carried out a vast operation which involved, in addition to the arrest of seven other people, five searches in the municipalities of Alcalá de los Gazules, Vejer de la Frontera, Algeciras and San Roque. In them, in addition to the drones and the workshop, 150 kilos of hashish and 320 thousand euros in cash were seized. The European Union Agency for Police Cooperation (Europol) participated in the investigation, led by the Investigative Court Number 4 of Algeciras and the Drug Prosecutor’s Office of Campo de Gibraltar.
