Cocaine and hashish arrived in Spain from North African countries in high-powered inflatable boats. In the middle of the Mediterranean, the members of the criminal organization transferred these drugs to larger vessels that ended up docking on the island of Ibiza, where the narcotics were stored and later distributed throughout the Balearic Islands or exported to other European countries. The Civil Guard and the National Police of the Balearic Islands consider that the criminal organization that was dedicated to trafficking this drug has been dismantled, led because it had important relationships with other organizations around Europe. In one of the phases of this operation, the former narcotics chief of the Balearic National Police, Faustino Nogales, was arrested and remains in preventive detention accused of collaborating with the organization.
Operation Manso Enroque Bal started in September last year when the Civil Guard seized 200 kilos of hashish that were traveling aboard a boat heading to Palma from the port of Ibiza. The next big blow came on July 9, when 675 kilos were seized in the port of Valencia. The drugs had previously been collected from another boat at an undetermined point in the Mediterranean and had subsequently been moved to Ibiza, where it waited a few days before being sent to the peninsula and several European countries. “To introduce the drug into Spain, they used high-powered inflatable boats from countries in North Africa. At a specific point in the Mediterranean, they transferred it to another boat that took it to the island of Ibiza, where it was stored for transfer to the peninsula or the rest of the Balearic Islands,” explained the spokesperson for the Civil Guard in the Balearic Islands, Paco Molina.
In August came one of the biggest blows for the organization with the arrest of 15 people, among them the leader of the United Tribuns, Stefan Milojević, and Inspector Faustino Nogales, former head of the Narcotics group of the National Police in the Balearic Islands. Both were sent to preventive detention after appearing in the guard court, Nogales accused of collaborating with the gang and Milojević of leading the importation and subsequent distribution of the narcotics. In August, September and October, the searches and arrests carried out by investigators allowed the dismantling of several small drug sales points in towns such as Palma, with one of the most active distribution centers in the town of Son Banya.
The spokesman for the National Police of the Balearic Islands, Alejandro Becerra, has pointed out that one of the main difficulties that investigators have encountered are the sophisticated systems that their members used to avoid being followed and located. “They adopted many surveillance and counter-surveillance security measures, they have used electronic means of beacon and geolocation to try to avoid being detected,” said Becerra. During the searches, night vision binoculars, tracking beacons, mobile phones and computers have been seized. The final balance of the operation leaves the seizure by the security forces and bodies of 1,543,300 euros, 687 kilos of cocaine, 2,500 kilos of hashish, two kilos of marijuana, four marijuana plantations with more than 1,500 plants, one kilo of methamphetamine, speedheroin, LSD and ecstasy pills.
Five of those arrested in this operation were tried by the Provincial Court of Palma in 2022 and sentenced to a total of 15 years in prison for drug trafficking. Milojević, sentenced to a year and a half in prison, did not go to prison because the court decided to suspend the execution of the sentence as he had no criminal record. The five accused were defended by lawyer Gonzalo Márquez, who was also arrested in this police operation, accused of collaborating in alleged money laundering. Milojević, in addition to being arrested in 2020, had previously been investigated for previous seizures of synthetic drugs and marijuana.
