The Provincial Court of Almería has imposed sentences on five members of an organization that coordinated to introduce about 200 kilos of cocaine from Brazil through the port of Algeciras (Cádiz) and transport it to El Ejido (Almería), camouflaged in a shipment of frozen soursop pulp.
According to the ruling, which Europa Press has accessed and which is not yet final, a sentence of eight years in prison and a fine of 19 million euros is set for the one considered the leader for a crime against public health. This accused assumed the role of "importer" through a commercial company, counting on the help of other partners for this.
The ruling also imposes sentences of between seven years and six and a half years in prison on two collaborators, responsible for receiving the merchandise and extracting the drugs in a warehouse, while the owner of the facilities and the transporter who took the container are each sentenced to three years and six months in prison.
The resolution details that the main defendant agreed with two Albanian citizens and other unidentified persons to introduce 200 kilos of cocaine from Brazil into Spain, using a shipment of frozen soursop pulp as cover, appearing as a legitimate commercial operation.
To carry out the plan, and through a previously agreed distribution of tasks, the accused used an export company established in 2022, of which he was listed as the sole administrator, although it lacked real activity.
This defendant managed the importation of a container of soursop pulp from Brazil, paying for both the product and the customs expenses. At the same time, the members of the network in Brazil organized for the frozen soursop pulp to be introduced in barrels protected by a metal structure in which the packages of cocaine would be hidden during transport.
The merchandise was loaded onto a container ship that departed from Brazil bound for Tangier (Morocco), where it arrived on April 1, 2024. There it remained in transit until another ship transferred it to the Port of Algeciras (Cádiz) on April 14, 2024.
However, before its arrival in Spain, the Spanish police forces had already been alerted from France about the possible presence of narcotics in the shipment, which allowed for the activation of a controlled and supervised delivery operation through the Anti-Drug Prosecutor's Office of Algeciras.
The container temporarily passed through a company of auxiliary services in Algeciras and, finally, on May 3, 2024, it was loaded onto a truck following the instructions of the main accused, transmitted directly or through intermediaries.
The vehicle, whose official destination was listed as Barcelona, was sealed after loading. However, the sentence highlights the involvement of the transporter, who the day before accepting the service received a call to divert the merchandise to El Ejido (Almería), "being aware that he could be transporting drugs."
The members of the plot also contacted the person in charge of some horticultural facilities to deposit the container there "in order to have a suitable place for the extraction of the cocaine hidden in the metal cages." The owner of the warehouse accepted the order, "being aware that it could be drugs" and "offering to store it temporarily."
Once all the steps to receive the shipment had been finalized, the collaborators of the main accused went to the warehouse to receive the truck and unload the tanks, at which point the police intervention occurred.
The agents used a saw to open the 20 soursop tanks and located inside them metal structures with ten packages of one kilogram of cocaine each. The other 19 metal structures were transferred to the Provincial Police Station of Málaga, where another 190 similar packages were found. The drug, with a purity of over 80%, would have reached a value of more than 8.6 million euros in the illicit market.