Brit Costa Criminal Gang Busted Off Spanish Coast

This is the dramatic moment police intercept a yacht off Spain’s Costa del Sol in a major operation against suspected international drug smugglers in which three British men have been arrested.

The seized items;

Police video footage shows the moment a police speedboat catches up with the leisure boat which was allegedly carrying nearly three tonnes of cannabis.

The operation, dubbed Marduk-Bachus, was staged jointly by Spain’s National Police, the Civil Guard and the Tax Agency into an international criminal gang allegedly smuggling drugs by boat from Morocco and Gibraltar into tourist resort marinas on southern Spain’s Malaga Province.

The seized items;

A Civil Guard spokesperson told Central European News (CEN) that a total of seven people had been arrested in the operation.

They included three British men, three Spaniards including a woman, and a German man. All seven face charges of organised crime and drug trafficking.

The Civil Guard spokesman told CEN that the Brits have been named by their initials of J.S.T. and C.L., both born in 1965, and T.D.B., who was born in 1977.

Cops say three of the seven suspects were arrested on the boat which was allegedly loaded with 92 bails of cannabis resin weighing a total of 2,992 kilogrammes (6,596 lbs).

The other four were subsequently arrested at undisclosed locations in Malaga Province.

Police also seized 633,335 EUR (543,971 GBP) and 24,125 GBP in cash, 30 mobile phones, four vehicles, a motorbike, a boat and a drone in the tourist city of Marbella.

The seized items;

Cops say the operation has effectively dismantled the gang which had been operating out of the major tourist city of Malaga to allegedly import drugs by boats into several marinas along the Costa del Sol.

The gang, allegedly led by a Spanish woman and her German boyfriend, was highly organised with each member having clearly defined duties, according to police.

The ownership of the leisure boat was allegedly concealed via a sophisticated network of ghost companies.