Police operation, Capnella, carried out by the Guardia Civil and the Inland Revenue, involved house searches in La Herradura and Almuñécar.

A total of 13 arrests were made, including the leader of the international drugs ring, as well as five house searches, 900 kilos of hashish confiscated, together with firearms and cash.

Furthermore, six boats were also impounded, two of which were pleasure craft with concealed compartments for hiding the drugs.

The list of items confiscated just goes on: nine cars, two motorbikes, 40 mobile phones, four walkie-talkies, one satellite phone, four professional binoculars and one piece of radar-sonar equipment.

The police operation was set up in August last year after news of a drugs ring was operating between Granada and Málaga, bringing in drugs consignments from Morocco.

The gang used pleasure craft to meet a mothership off the coast of Morocco to take on a cargo of hashish and deliver it to the Costa Tropical and Costa del Sol.

So well developed was the gang’s infrastructure that they also provided services for smaller drug-smuggling gangs, such as adapting boats to carry drugs, storage for consignments and information about police movements.

The first police raid netted 900 kilos of hashish being landed on Playa de Sabinillas in Estepona during the early morning of the 21st of November, resulting in six arrests. The gang began to unravel with these arrests and finally the police were able to identify and arrest all of its members.

(News: Almunecar/Herradura, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)