Guardia Civil and Revenue officers have seized a total of 2,513 kilos of cocaine from Colombia and Mexico which arrived in the port of Valencia, the intended final destination of the drugs being Madrid and Barcelona.
The operation began in February and three people have so far been arrested, all Spanish nationals.
In February, a routine check on a container supposedly full of generators led to the discovery of 400 kilos of cocaine. The shipment was traced back to Puerto Seco de Coslada in Madrid where another container was discovered to contain 600 kilos of the drug.
The Guardia Civil then discovered that both containers had been introduced into Spain via the port of Valencia. Both containers had travelled on the same ship, so 15 more containers from that particular ship were searched and police found a further 1,212 kilos of cocaine.
The drugs traffickers were using a system whereby the drugs were hidden in the containers of companies totally unrelated to themselves or the drugs trade and where the final destination of those containers was unknown. The system saves on bribes and payments to intermediaries, but does require careful monitoring of when the containers are collected so as not to lose track of the cargo.