The largest cocaine laboratory in Europe, producing 200 kg of cocaine per day, was dismantled by the Spanish National Police, together with the Portuguese Judicial Police, in Cerdedo Cotobada, Galicia. The authorities called this action “Operation Muran”.
Since last year, when they realized they were investigating the same criminal group, the SP has been exchanging information with the anti-narcotics unit of the Spanish National Police, Portuguese authorities said in a statement. 18 people were arrested, including Mexicans, Colombians and Spaniards.
The Portuguese security forces found out that a group of Spanish citizens had imported a stone crusher from Colombia that had been manufactured for a neighboring country. Since the importation was through Portugal, the SP, with the help of the customs services of the Inland Revenue, managed to control the entire process, as well as the arrival of some suspects on Portuguese lands.
The stone crusher was destined for a warehouse in Pontevedra, Spain. There, it will be dismantled to extract “the coca paste it contains,” the statement said. After that, the drug was gradually transported from this warehouse to a laboratory a few kilometers away, in a house in the middle of the forest. There, the paste was converted into cocaine, and once packaged and labeled, the drug was ready to be transported for distribution.
The first of these transports was under surveillance by the authorities, which made it possible to seize a van with about 100 kilograms of cocaine near Madrid. It was after this confiscation that Operation Mouran was initiated, during which the liquidation of “what is still considered the largest laboratory for the transformation of base paste into cocaine ever found in Europe, capable of producing about 200 kilograms of this substance per day” . prohibited substance,” the joint venture said in a statement.
The Spanish and Portuguese authorities also succeeded in seizing all drugs transported in a crusher brought from Colombia. Approximately 1,300 kg of coca paste and 151 kg of cocaine hydrochloride were seized, as well as precursors, several vehicles and four tons of highly hazardous chemicals. Several properties and valuable financial products were also confiscated.