The First Section has sentenced six members of a “stable and permanent over time” criminal clan dedicated to cocaine trafficking and based in the and to prison terms of between two months and six and a half years, for crimes against public health and belonging to a criminal group.
The sentence, handed down based on an agreement between the parties, is final and comes almost a year and a half after the arrest of three of those responsible. It was on December 18, 2024 when one of the convicted persons was surprised while traveling along the highway, from Valencia to Castellón, with seven kilos of cocaine in packages hidden in a raffia bag from a supermarket that he was carrying inside the trunk. The drugs had been placed shortly before in the vehicle by two other of the now convicted, the leaders of the organization, who were arrested that same day. The amount of cocaine seized in the searches carried out later in the drug traffickers’ homes would have been sold on the illicit market for more than 726,000 euros, according to the ruling made public this Tuesday by the .
The Chamber imposes six and a half years in prison and fines of one million euros on the two ringleaders, of Albanian nationality. He has agreed to replace the custodial sentence with expulsion from the national territory once the two years in prison have been completed, according to the ruling. For a third man, of Spanish nationality, who was at a second level of the criminal network and was dedicated to , the penalty is three years and eleven months in prison and a fine of 400,000 euros.
The sentence sentences two other members of the gang to six months in prison, in charge of renting in their name the homes used by the leaders of the organization and where the narcotic substance was stored and guarded. He also imposed two months in prison on the sister of one of them as an accomplice to the crime of , for helping her relative pay the rent at specific times.
The ruling considers it proven that the convicts were part of an organization that operated in the provinces of Valencia and Castellón, in which all of them had an assigned function, such as directing the gang and obtaining the substances, transporting the drugs or renting the homes to guard it and prepare it for sale.
During the house searches carried out in the homes of the drug traffickers, located in the municipalities of l’Eliana and Valencia, the necessary utensils to prepare it for distribution were located, as well as money from its sale: 26,000 euros divided into 50 bills.
The sentence, which is final, agrees to the confiscation and destruction of the drugs and the confiscation of the seized goods and instruments such as two vehicles, money or telephones, which will be used for the prevention, investigation, prosecution and repression of drug-related crimes, under Law 17/2023 of May 29.
