• The organization used a courier and parcel company to facilitate illegal shipments

• During the investigation, nine people have been arrested and six house searches have been carried out in Benalmádena (Málaga) and Écija (Seville).

• The actions have allowed the seizure of a large amount of cash

January 29, 2024.- Officials from the Customs Surveillance Service, with the collaboration of the National Police, have dismantled a criminal organization dedicated to the shipment of contraband tobacco snuff and prohibited medicines and substances through the Internet, which included the participation of a parcel and courier company from Benalmádena (Málaga). Nine people have been arrested for alleged crimes against public health, smuggling, money laundering and membership in a criminal organization.

The investigations began in 2022, when a large number of packets of smuggled tobacco, as well as anabolic steroids and other stimulating substances, were detected in different provinces, which had been sent from transport agencies in the province of Malaga.

The large number of shipments of contraband and medicines detected, and the lack of collaboration between some of the courier agencies and the officials, led investigators to suspect the participation of the courier companies themselves in smuggling and public health crimes, focusing the investigation on the operations of one agency in particular, located in the Arroyo de la Miel industrial estate, in Benalmádena.

During the investigations, 1,400 kilos of contraband tobacco were seized in various operations, valued at 224,000 euros, as well as some 1,000 anabolic and sexually active pills, and a vehicle used to transport the packages prepared for shipment was seized. Three people were arrested after being caught red-handed in the act of smuggling, and the warehouse where the tobacco was stored and prepared for shipment by courier company was discovered.

Entries and records

On December 13, once the investigations had made clear the participation of the parcel company and a large part of its employees in the commission of crimes of smuggling and against public health, raids and searches authorized by the Court of Instruction of Torremolinos were carried out, three in Benalmádena and another three in Écija (Seville), making six arrests of people involved.

During house searches, 200,000 euros in cash belonging to the organisation were found, which were waiting to be introduced into the legal money circuit through various money laundering operations. The detainees, the goods and the money seized have been placed at the disposal of the court.

The dismantled organisation operated in the provinces of Malaga and Seville and, in just over a year and a half, is believed to have made at least 8,000 shipments totalling 23,000 kilos of chopped tobacco, through the same parcel and courier agency, for which it is believed to have received approximately 580,000 euros in profit.

Regarding the medications offered, all of them were related to erectile dysfunction. They did not comply with established controls nor had they been subjected to sufficient quality controls to be consumed by users. Its trafficking and marketing are illegal as neither its composition nor its effects are guaranteed.