Agents of the National Police have arrested in Madrid the representative in Europe of the Mexican organization of the ZETAS, four other people, and have intervened 400 kilos of cocaine, 220,000 euros in cash, two vehicles, ten telephones and documentation of interest.
The operation has been carried out with the collaboration of the Colombian National Police and the United States Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and constitutes the second major coup by the National Police against Mexican criminal organizations, with the ultimate objective to avoid its implantation in Spain.
The investigation began on the figure of the person in charge of the ZETAS in Europe, a drug trafficker who, although he had his residence in Madrid, was characterized by leading a nomadic life and whose constant displacements complicated the work of the investigation groups.
With the development of the investigations, the different members of the organization and the role they played in it were known, in addition to verifying how the leader distributed people he trusted throughout the national territory and in Europe, specifically in the Netherlands.
The head of the organization held a high number of meetings constantly and with different people, making it difficult for the police to determine which ones were relevant to the investigation. However, in recent months, he not only increased self-protection measures, but also increased the number of these meetings, which alerted the agents because it denoted that he could be in the final phase of a cocaine importation, reported the National Police in a statement.
Investigators detected a meeting that he had with the man nicknamed El Repetido, a name attributed to a triplet brother of Colombian origin known in the world of drug trafficking. Thus, the police efforts on those investigated were increased in order to be able to detect and abort the illegal operation that they were trying to create.
Thanks to international cooperation with the Colombian authorities, the agents have been able to arrest the criminal organization based in Colombia, thus dismantling it in the different countries in which it operated.