Lorraine Williamson
The Spanish National Police and Customs have seized 13 tons of drugs in the port of Algeciras. The drug problem is getting worse. 2023 was a record year for cocaine on many fronts.
Spain broke the record for seizures of this drug (more than 100 tons). In August, the largest cocaine seizure in Spain’s history was made. It was 9,436 kilos from Ecuador, originally packed in bundles with swastikas on them. The cargo was seized by the National Police in the port of Algeciras. But this record has already been broken, at the same place an even larger load was discovered.
Officers of the National Police, in cooperation with customs officials, opened a container loaded with bananas on October 15. The shipment of fruit contained a record seizure of 13,062 kilos of cocaine, the largest amount ever seized in Spain. The fruits were destined for a citrus company in the province of Alicante, which had already been examined.
Ongoing investigation
At the moment, one person has been arrested in Toledo, but the investigation is still ongoing. Police entered and searched the company’s two offices and private residences in El Campello, Playa de San Juan, Almoradí and Alicante. Police expect to make more arrests in the coming days. The alleged leaders, a man and a woman listed as managers of fruit and citrus fruit companies in Almoradí and El Campello, were not at home when the searches were carried out. Presumably, they had fled beforehand when they suspected that the stock had been discovered.
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Record catch
To illustrate the magnitude of the seizure, around 50 tons of cocaine were seized in Spain in 2022. With this record haul alone, police have seized nearly a quarter of that amount. These 13 tons account for almost all the cocaine seized at the port of Algeciras in the whole of 2023. That was 14 tons. Sources claim that the organisation behind this shipment had the logistical capacity to send almost fifty containers per month to Europe.
Ecuador increasingly important supplier of cocaine
Cocaine trafficking has become an epidemic in recent years. According to the World Drug Report 2024 by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, cocaine production and trafficking increased by 20% between 2021 and 2022. Figures for the last 2 years are not yet available, but the preliminary figures say that a record is set every year.
While Colombia has traditionally been the main exporter of the substance, it is now the Ecuadorian mafias that are largely responsible for the violence and chaos in the country that do business with the Europeans. The last large shipments intercepted in Spain come from Ecuador. And this is not just by the sea. Last June, the Policia Nacional dismantled an international transnational network that supplied Ecuadorian cocaine in air containers.