Joint operation between the Tax Agency and the National Police

• The organization had devised an ingenious cover for transporting the drugs, sending the caravan by boat with two kayaks and a bicycle rack with the idea of simulating a transfer for the practice of outdoor activities.

• After more than two years of waiting in South America due to health restrictions caused by Covid-19, the motorhome with the narcotic hidden in a double bottom is sent to the port of Barcelona, where agents intercept the illicit merchandise.

• Within the framework of the same actions, two members of the criminal organization have been arrested.

• The operation was the result of more than two years of joint investigation by officers from the Basque Country's UDYCO of the National Police and the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency.

• The drug is believed to have reached a value of over 60 million euros on the illicit retail market.

July 27, 2022.- Officials from the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency and agents of the National Police in the Basque Country have seized 534 kilos of cocaine in the port of Barcelona that were traveling camouflaged in a motorhome, as explained this Wednesday by the Government delegate in the Basque Country, Denis Itxaso. "The value of the drugs on the retail market," said the delegate, "would have amounted to more than 60 million euros and its main destination was the Basque Country."

The interception of this motorhome from South America carrying cocaine hidden in a false bottom occurred within the framework of a joint operation between officials from the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency and agents of the National Police in the Basque Country.

To introduce the drug into Spain, at the end of 2019 the organisation had sent the caravan by boat with two kayaks and a bicycle rack with the idea of simulating a transfer for the practice of outdoor activities. More than two years later, and having overcome the health restrictions caused by Covid-19, the vehicle was sent back to Spain, finally being intercepted at the port of Barcelona. Within the framework of the same actions, two members of the criminal organization have been arrested.

The Government delegate presented the stash at the National Police Complex in the town of Basauri, accompanied by a representative from the Tax Agency and the Chief of the National Police in the Basque Country, Chief Commissioner Jesús Herranz. Itxaso explained that the operation, called 'Keja-Ojo Salado', "is the result of a long, complex and laborious investigation carried out by the Drugs and Organized Crime Unit (UDYCO) of the National Police Headquarters in the Basque Country and Customs Surveillance of the Tax Agency in the Basque Country. The efficiency of both bodies has allowed this seizure." Customs Surveillance and the National Police have acted within the framework of their respective powers to combat international drug trafficking, to secure the logistics chain of international trade and to prosecute smuggling offences.

An ingenious transportation plan

As a result of international cooperation between the various Customs authorities and the Police, at the end of 2019 investigators became aware of preparations by a drug trafficking organisation to introduce a significant quantity of narcotics into the national territory.

The criminal organization's sophisticated strategy involved using foreign trade channels to export a motorhome to a South American country, pretending that it was going to be used for outdoor activities. To this end, the vehicle had been equipped with two kayaks on top and a bicycle rack, thus trying to make it difficult for Customs to detect it upon its subsequent return to national territory.

While the members of the criminal organization traveled by plane to South America, the motorhome was transported on a ship that left Spain at the end of 2019.

In all likelihood, the organization's expectation was to return with the drugs in a few months, but the pandemic caused by Covid-19, with the resulting border closure, brought the operation to a screeching halt.

The criminal organisation was patient and, possibly convinced that the strategy it had designed would be fruitful, waited for the normalisation of maritime transport to take the motorhome back to Spain by sea, two and a half years after starting its journey.

Drug seizures and arrests

During all this time, the UDYCO of the National Police in Bilbao and the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency in the Basque Country had, however, maintained strict control over the objectives of the investigation.

Thus, as soon as the motorhome was presented to Customs in the port of Barcelona, a joint team from both institutions proceeded to inspect it and discovered a hidden compartment which, in turn, hid a perfectly concealed double bottom that had been built into the underside of the vehicle and which contained 333 packages, weighing 534 kilos, of a substance that, once analysed with the narcotest, turned out to be high-purity cocaine.

Finally, and already in the executive phase of the operation, officers from the GOES and UDYCO Unit of the Basque Country Higher Headquarters, together with Customs Surveillance officials from the Tax Agency in the Basque Country and Catalonia, proceeded to arrest two members of the organization and immediately bring them before the courts, with the police operation currently continuing.