The Autopista de la Mediterrània or AP-7 is a 1,109-kilometer axis that connects the Mediterranean coast from the border with France to Guadiaro, in Cádiz. One of the most important and busiest communication routes on the continent and, consequently, a route used by organized crime in the transport of illegal goods. That is why yesterday the Mossos d’Esquadra and the Tax Agency deployed a control in the space occupied by the toll booths of Martorell, in which one of the mobile scanners used by customs agents was used for the first time. The objective: to locate the transport of people, weapons or drugs.
The police device is the first of its kind in Spain. The Tax Agency has fixed and mobile scanners that it uses at land and sea borders, ports and airports. The novelty yesterday consisted in moving one of these scanners to the old tollbooth to inspect the load of suspicious trucks.
The deployment was impressive. The Mossos moved several ARRO teams from the southern metropolitan police region to provide security at the control. The traffic division sent patrols there, and one of the vans they use doubles as a mobile office. The canine unit moved three binomials with trained dogs. After inspecting the trucks with dogs and X-rays, customs officials determined that there was a suspicious anomaly.
There was also the presence of citizen security patrols from the Vilafranca del Penedès police station and civilian investigative agents who work exclusively on the highways in search of thieves, distracted vehicles or the loading of trucks in rest areas .
All the police were organized to choose the vehicles that were ordered to enter the police area. The first to act were the cops from the traffic division, with experience and track record in interpreting vehicle documentation. They checked that the documentation was in order and that the driver had complied with the statutory rest hours. Customs officials take charge after analyzing the documentation of the port, origin and destination of the cargo and the contents. The truck was moved to a point away from the rest of the police, and there the customs van, with the scanner inside, carried out passes capturing images as if an X-ray was taken. Images that later another official analyzed live from a monitor. Just yesterday morning, the Tax Agency ordered to open three trailers because what the driver declared did not correspond to what was seen on the scanner. One of the drivers assured that he was returning empty to Hungary and the machine detected the presence of two containers with thousands of liters of an oil derivative that the driver was not able to detail neither where they came from, nor where they were going , nor who they were for.
