The dismantling of the largest European cocaine paste processing laboratory —carried out by the National Police a few weeks ago in Pontevedra— has confirmed what police experts have been warning for some time: drug traffickers are leaving the Colombian jungles to set up their kitchens —in which to finish processing the drug— in Europe.
A change in strategy that allows criminals to save costs and reduce risks, by not having to resort to large ships loaded with cocaine to cross the Atlantic. A round business, “very complicated” to dismantle, according to the Police.
When the agents of the Central Narcotics Brigade broke into the operations center, which the drug traffickers had installed in an industrial warehouse on the outskirts of a small Galician town, they could not imagine what was hidden in a stone crushing machine that the organization had moved from across the pond.
The policemen used thermal lances for more than 14 hours to gain access to one of the cylinders of the machine, in which the drug traffickers hid more than a ton of cocaine base paste. It was about to start being cooked to turn it into cocaine hydrochloride; the powder ready to snort.
Criminal organizations are constantly reinventing themselves to try to evade the police pressure to which they are subjected. And in those, drug traffickers have seen a real opportunity to be able to move their clandestine laboratories to Europe. There are two main factors that have led drug traffickers to this change in trend detected by the Security Forces and Corps.
First; save expenses. According to police sources explained to La Vanguardia, the interception -most of the beatings to these mafias are given on the high seas- of a ton of cocaine hydrochloride, whose value can be around between 2,000 and 3,000 euros per kilogram, is not the same. than a ton of cocaine base paste, whose price per kilogram is between 500 and 800 euros. The second; Avoid risks. The same sources assure that it is much easier to hide the base paste, like the one that was hidden in the cylinders of the machine used in the quarries to break stones.
The investigators calculate that the dismantled laboratory could produce about 200 kilos a day of cocaine hydrochloride. Some stratospheric numbers. But for this, the organization had previously drawn up a plan to be able to set up the necessary infrastructure without them having the slightest suspicion that the Police controlled all their steps.
After finding the ideal place —a warehouse and a chalet away from other homes— the drug traffickers began to collect the chemical products used in cooking. The agents seized more than 23,000 liters of precursors and four tons of solid chemical products used to process the drug.
Police warn of the amount of chemical products seized. “An environmental catastrophe has been averted.” And it is that the “silent contamination”, to which the same police sources refer, can be as harmful as the problem for public health that the drug in circulation can suppose. In fact, countries like the Netherlands or Colombia are more concerned about the contamination that can be derived from these cocaine processes than about the manufacturing itself: the drug travels to other countries, but the residues remain there.
Once the laboratory has the infrastructure, chemical products and raw materials from the other side of the Atlantic, all that remains is the staff to start it up. The organizations resort, as the case of the last operation confirms, to Colombian chefs. They are experts in converting the paste into cocaine base first and then into hydrochloride. They travel to Europe to prepare the last cooking process, get paid for their work and go to their country. During their stay in Spain, as explained by the police sources, any mobile phone or electronic device is taken from them to avoid any leak of information that could endanger criminals.
The criminal organizations that are establishing their laboratories in Europe also take into account the ‘packaging’ to finish introducing cocaine into the market. It is not the same —at least, apparently— to sell Colombian cocaine than Made in Spain. For this reason, the investigators of this operation were very struck by how the drug traffickers had wrapped the cocaine bales in impermeable plastic material, as if they had to cross the ocean. And that was the purpose: to deceive the next intermediaries that the merchandise they were going to deliver came directly from Colombian lands. Everything was calculated.
