Nine members of the criminal network were arrested. In a single night, they managed to move up to 200 kg of drugs from Morocco to Spain. More than 200 kg of hashish, 320 thousand euros in cash and 18 drones were seized, eight of which have already been modified.
A criminal network operating from Cádiz was caught by the Spanish Guardia Civil in an unusual drug trafficking scheme. According to the authority, criminals used drones that they modified to transport hundreds of kilos of drugs from Morocco to Spain.
The group took advantage of the night period on days when weather conditions were favorable and light winds, to carry out continuous flights between Morocco and Cádiz, in Spain. Each drone carried about three kilos of hashishbeing able in a single night, smuggling up to 200 kilos of hashish.
How did they do it? The criminal network acquired normal drones from Chinese companies and then adapted them for that purpose in a clandestine workshop “to give them greater autonomy, resistance and load capacity“, stated the Guardia Civil in a press release.
To do this, “they adapted the electronic systems and reinforced the fuselages with light materials” until they obtained “unique and highly efficient models for the transport of drugs”. These devices were also equipped with a mechanism that released the product into the air.
Launched from Morocco, the drones dropped their cargo when they reached their final destination, in Spain, and elements of the criminal network They collected it using geolocation, sound signals, fluorescent lights on packages and night vision goggles.
The drug was later left in rented rural houses that were used to hide them until final distribution.
By the time investigators moved into a major operation, in which five searches were carried out in Alcalá de los Gazules, Vejer de la Frontera, Algeciras and San Roquewere detained eight network elementsin addition to eight drones that had already been modified and used, and another 10 new who expected the same fate in order to expand the fleet destined for trafficking.
In these searches, which took place on Monday, in addition to the drones and the workshop, more 150 kilos of hashish and 320 thousand euros in cash.
Before this operation, the Guardia Civil already had intercepted on October 22ndun organization vehicle after a chase in which several police officers were injured. After the arrest of the driver, network member, the Guardia Civil seized 57.2 kilos of hashish inside the carwhich had been smuggled into Spain using drones.
