The Policía Nacional smashed an illegal, medicine trade operated via the Internet, confiscating half a million pills and arresting 25 people, two of whom live in Motril.

The gang were based in Puerto Santa María in Cádiz where they imported  medicines for erectile disfunction and slimming in tablets/capsules, amongst other kinds, from India. Using two websites, the goods were distributed all over Spain.

It was a profitable business because they were buying the tablets/capsules at ten cents each and selling them at 10 euros a piece, so the 500,000 euros was worth five million on the market.

Some of the online clients were brothels where they sold erectile disfunction tablets for ten euros a pill. But the majority of buyers were individuals.

As there is a growing tendency amongst illegal businesses to conclude transactions in Bitcoins, the police are constantly combing the Net on the lookout. One such police sweep, had the code name of Torre, because this was the surname of one user of the said websites who resold the pills in his shop, catering for gyms (body builders, etc).

The police believe that this illegal operation was just about to expand into the international trade as they had already set up deals in the UK.

Besides the number of arrests and the 1.5m pills confiscated, the police also nabbed 23,000 euros in cash, 65,000 euros in Bitcoins and frozen a bank account belonging to one of members with 320,000 euros in it.

(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)