The Guardia Civil, in collaboration with Correos, dismantled a drugs ring that had been sending hashish out of Almuñécar to several European countries.

The police operation, entitled Paquetexpress, resulted in the arrest of 15 people in Almuñécar, all of whom are Spaniards: 14 males between 19 and 35 years of age and a minor of 16. Another minor is also under investigation.

Paquetexpress, which was brought into being nine months ago, intercepted 41 parcels of varying amounts of hashish, with a total content weight between them of four kilos. Most of the parcels bore addresses in Italy, although some were also destined for the UK, France and Germany.

The gang charged their customers using Western Union money-transfer service

It was on the 24th of February that staff at the Centro de Tratamiento Automatizado (CTA) de Correos in Granada alerted the Guardia Civil about suspicious packages passing through their scanners, all sent from Almuñécar.

The Guardia Civil post in Almuñécar took charge of the parcels and all the subsequent ones picked up by the scanning process. They didn’t open them though, but transferred them to the law courts in Granada, which authorised an inspection of the contents and confirmed that it was hashish.

Despite the fact that both the sender and addressee information were false, the Guardia Civil established that there was a drugs ring behind them based in Almuñécar, with three ringleaders: one obtained the drugs, another handled the customers’ money and the third recruited individuals to actually take the packages to the Post Office and send them.

Six of those arrested are now in the provincial prison in Albolote whilst the others have been released pending trial.

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