MADRID.- Four tons of cocaine hidden in sacks of rice arriving from Paraguay were seized in Barcelona, the largest seizure ever recorded in the port of this city in northeastern Spain, during a raid in which eight people were arrested, the Civil Guard announced on Friday.
The seizure is the result of an international investigation launched last year against a Spanish company that imported rice from Paraguay, the Civil Guard said in a statement.
The traffickers had a team in Asunción in charge of “processing the drugs until they became powder, packaging them in plastic bags and placing them in rice sacks that were sewn by hand,” the security force said.
The criminal network “was made up of businessmen specialising in imports and exports” and “investors who provided the capital necessary for the logistics of the operations”, as well as “security personnel” in charge of protecting the operations, he said.
According to the Civil Guard, which acted in collaboration with the Paraguayan police and the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the network also exported drugs to other European ports.
In March, 2.1 tonnes of cocaine belonging to this organisation were seized in Southampton, UK, and in October, another 3.3 tonnes of the drug were discovered in Paraguay.
In addition to the eight people arrested in Spain, including the head of the Spanish company under investigation, whose name is not specified in the statement, two other people were arrested, including the head of the network in Paraguay, the Civil Guard said.
Spain is considered one of the main entry points for South American cocaine into Europe.
Source: AFP
