A 79-year-old Spaniard, suspected of leading a group of drug traffickers, has been arrested in Portugal, Spanish authorities announced on Tuesday. According to the Spanish Civil Guard, the woman, who has already passed retirement age, was the head of a group that imported cocaine from the Dominican Republic to Portugal. She was arrested in Vila Real, in the north of Portugal, along with two other Spaniards, aged 26 and 60, as part of an operation carried out by the forces of order in Spain and Portugal.
“They took cocaine to the peninsula [ibérique] via Portuguese ports through a legal company created to import coral from the Dominican Republic ”, explained the Civil Guard in its press release. “The 79-year-old woman was the head of the group as well as the manager and owner of the front company,” explained the Civil Guard. Investigators arrested the three people after discovering cocaine hidden within the company and at their home in Portugal.
This group acted as a wholesaler for other traffickers, who later sold the cocaine, particularly in southern Spain. The Iberian Peninsula is one of the main cocaine entry points into Europe for drug traffickers, who use processes sometimes worthy of spy movies. A submarine leaving Latin America and carrying 100 million euros of cocaine was intercepted in the Spanish region of Galicia [nord-ouest], near Portugal, in November 2020.