• The main culprit, a German citizen, made 'lightning trips' to Spain to obtain the product at a low price, send it by parcel to towns near his home in Germany and return to his home to sell the merchandise tripling its value.

July 31, 2023 .- The Tax Agency and the Civil Guard, within the framework of the joint operation 'Guanaquímica-San Francisco' of the Local Risk Analysis Unit (ULAR) of Seville, have arrested two individuals in the town of Seville for international trafficking of marijuana and hashish. The main culprit, a German citizen, made 'lightning trips' to Spain to obtain the product at a low price, send it by parcel to towns near his home in Germany and return to the place of origin to sell the merchandise tripling its value, which represents a novel way of sending these substances from the city of Seville.

Based on the analyses carried out and the investigative work of ULAR, a unit made up of personnel from the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency and the Fiscal and Border Analysis and Investigation Unit –UDAIFF– of the Civil Guard of the Port of Seville, two parcel shipments were detected, one with five kilos of cannabis buds and another with just over five kilos of hashish destined for Germany.

From that moment on, the necessary actions were initiated to discover and locate those responsible for the shipment in Spain before they left the country, resulting in the placement at the disposal of the court, as a detainee, of a German citizen moments before leaving the national territory, and of a second individual as an investigated person who was not detained.

In the framework of the same operation, the ULAR also proceeded to arrest and bring to court another person, of Spanish nationality, from whom 15 kilos of cannabis buds were seized. According to investigations, this person requested free samples of around five kilos of buds each from different suppliers in other European countries, especially Italy, with the excuse of establishing a future business relationship if the merchandise was of quality for the production of supposed derivatives.

Second case, with the United Kingdom

Following the seizure of the shipments to Germany, investigators carried out an operation unconnected to the previous one, but which could have the same modus operandi. A courier company in Seville detected a shipment bound for the United Kingdom containing five kilos of marijuana buds and three kilos of hashish. Investigations are ongoing, so further arrests cannot be ruled out.