Greek authorities have dismantled an international criminal group transporting pounds of cocaine in shipping containers from Latin America to Europe, police said on Thursday.
Police found and confiscated dozens of plastic bags containing more than 462 pounds of cocaine in shrimp containers at the port of Piraeus. It estimated that the group’s illegal profits exceeded 5 million euros ($5.4 million). The drugs are believed to have originated from Latin America and were travelling to European countries, including Greece, for illicit profit.
The large-scale operation was carried out over several months with the co-operation of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at the US Embassy in Athens, the Greek police’s special counter-terrorism unit and the Anti-Narcotics Unit of the 3rd Customs Directorate of Piraeus.
The four people arrested included a 48-year-old man, believed to be the leader and responsible for directing the operation, drug transfers and financing, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison, including a fine, from 2017 when he was found guilty of illegally producing the synthetic drug Captagon.
A 64-year-old man was serving a prison sentence in the US for his involvement in trafficking weapons from Europe, while a 36-year-old man was responsible for recruiting other members. The fourth man arrested was a 54-year-old man who was in charge of the 48-year-old leader’s personal security detail. All four men are believed to come from Albania and Greece.
Greek authorities also have managed to dismantle several drug trafficking groups in recent months, and hundreds of kilograms of illicit drugs have been seized on Greek territory.
