On Tuesday, the PSP clarified that the operation carried out over the weekend in Gondomar and Maia, a district of Porto, resulted in the seizure of almost 602 thousand euros, acknowledging that it could be one of the largest in the region.
At a press conference at the headquarters of the PSP Criminal Investigation Department in Porto, in addition to the €601,905 seized, the seizure of 4,391 doses of cocaine, 546 doses of marijuana, 158 doses of hashish and 206 doses of MDMA was revealed.
“If this is not the largest confiscation of money, it is certainly one of the largest confiscations of money in the Porto region,” said Luse Hugo Pereira, commander of the 3rd Criminal Unit of Porto.
Hugo Pereira admitted that, given the amount of money seized, there could have been other crimes besides the drug trafficking already identified.
According to the commissioner, “the investigation lasted a year and a half” and led to the arrest of three suspects – two men and a woman – “with connections to drug cartels in Spain”, bringing her to Porto.
Hugo Pereira said that searches were underway in Spain and that “the investigation in Portugal will continue.”
The suspects’ connections to Spanish cartels allowed them to bring “large quantities of cocaine and marijuana” into the region, drugs that were distributed “by traffickers in the outskirts and sensitive areas of the city of Porto,” the commissioner described.
The vast majority of drugs arrived in Porto in private cars, he said, adding that the seized drug was “stored elsewhere and not in the house of the mother of one of the suspects”, but did not specify where exactly.
During the operation, PSP Porto also confiscated three cars, one of them a Ferrari, with a commercial value of 275 thousand euros, which was “standing on a stand on the outskirts of Porto”, and two precision scales, he added.
The operation targeted people who were organized in drug trafficking crime in the metropolitan area of Porto, with “three searches of houses in Maia and Gondomar” being carried out.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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