The National Police has culminated a long and laborious investigation, proceeding in the course of it to the arrest of 31 people of up to eight different nationalities, in different locations of the Galician geography, as well as Castile and Leon. The detainees were charged as allegedly responsible for crimes of drug trafficking and belonging to a criminal group.
This operation began in the last months of 2018, when the agents focused their investigations on one of the main investigated, which ran several hostess clubs near the Galician capital. He took advantage of the relative privacy that this type of business provides to allegedly traffic in the retail sale of cocaine.
The temporary duration as well as the complexity of the “Neon” operation was a direct consequence of the “modus operandi” used by the main investigated and that consisted of gaining the trust of a specific supplier to leave the narcotic substance in a trustworthy and fair manner. Before the debt contracted with it was too high, it looked for a new supplier to which to make the same “play”.
Said “modus operandi” made it easier for the agents to follow different lines of investigation, each one of them with an independent network of contacts and therefore without direct linkage with each other, following a radial-type structure, which allowed the agents to identify alleged suppliers of cocaine in towns such as Sigüeiro, Santiago de Compostela and Ourense.
Sigüeiro research line
In this municipality, the agents of the Compostela police station dismantled an important point of sale of cocaine, which supplied “clients” from the towns of Sigüeiro, Oroso, Órdenes, Cerceda and Santiago de Compostela and whose ramifications extended its scope beyond the Galician geography , even reaching cities such as León and Palencia, where they had already contacted people to proceed with the distribution of the narcotic substance in said capitals, proceeding to the arrest of five people, putting two of the alleged “leaders” in prison.
Research line of Santiago de Compostela
In the Galician capital, the agents of the Local Police Station of Santiago detained 8 people, including three different providers of the investigated and manager of a hostess club, as well as another provider and neighbor of the town of Bandeira, but that the agents placed in a step higher than the previous ones.
Four of the detainees entered prison, the investigators verifying that said branch of investigation had a whole network to distribute the narcotic substance through different neighborhoods of the city, including how it was making contacts with people in Germany, in order to ” place “narcotic substance in the German country.
Ourense research line
As a result of the inquiries that were followed on another of the suppliers of the investigated and manager of the hostess club, it allowed to dismantle an important network dedicated to the sale of narcotic substances in the city of the hot springs. During the investigation, it was found that said organization made contacts with Portugal, Morocco and the city of Seville, even going so far as to detect that one of its leaders came to direct cocaine transactions from the Dominican Republic. The result of arrests in this line of investigation resulted in the arrest of 18 people who made up said organization, three of them entering prison.
Development and exploitation of the “Neón” operation
The so-called “Neón” operation was developed in 6 phases, all due to its great complexity and scope, with the Santiago Police Station agents having the collaboration of officials belonging to the Narcotics Groups of the Ourense Provincial Police Station and de León, as well as the Superior Police Headquarters of Galicia.
The investigation was masterfully directed by the head of the Court of Instruction number ONE of Orders, which decreed the entry into prison of nine people, these being the “ringleaders” of the three mentioned criminal groups, out of a total of 31 detainees and after carrying out 25 home searches.
Intervened substances and effects
The total of the intervened drug reaches 1,450 grams of cocaine, 865 grams of marijuana, 105 grams of hashish. Similarly, the agents intervened more than 42,000 euros in cash, two vehicles, one of them high-end, 20 precision scales, 4 small arms, 305 unexploded small arms cartridges, a long weapon, an electric pistol, 1 rifle of simulated assault, 26 tapped telephones, 23 precision scales, a hydraulic press, 6 vacuum packers, as well as various knives, brass knuckles and daggers, among others.
The investigation was carried out by officials attached to the Narcotics Group of the Local Brigade of the Judicial Police of the Santiago de Compostela Police Station and is not considered concluded, so further arrests are not ruled out.
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