The Civil Guard and the National Police have dismantled a criminal organization dedicated to drug trafficking, illicit possession of weapons and illegal detention in an operation that has resulted in 15 detainees in various parts of Spain and that is still open.
As reported by the Armed Institute, the operation, called Itálicaahora-Flanagan, began last February after finding two Italian citizens injured and disoriented in the Sevillian municipality of El Palmar de Troya. They had been kidnapped, threatened with a gun and forcibly taken to an isolated farm, where they were attacked and a large amount of money was stolen. After eight months of investigations, the agents came to the conclusion that it was a ‘overturn’, a word used in criminal slang for the violent theft of drugs or money between gangs.
The dismantled organization had branches in Utrera (Seville), Estepona and Fuengirola (Málaga) and Maó (Menorca). The collaboration between the Judicial Police of the Sevillian town and the Narcotics Group of the Menorcan municipality was key to identifying and following the movements of the network, which was dedicated to the import of hashish, export of marijuana and distribution of cocaine in the Balearic Islands, under an organized structure with its headquarters in Italy.
After months of surveillance, searches were carried out in different locations in Seville and Menorca, where 180 kg of hashish, marijuana plantations, cocaine, packaging material, precision scales, cash and high-value jewelry were seized. Several firearms, both legal and illegal, were also seized, including sawed-off shotguns and modified pistolsalong with ammunition of different calibers.
In total, they have arrested 15 people, ten in Utrera and five in Menorcaof which nine have been sent to provisional prison after being brought to justice, although new arrests are not ruled out.
