The Guardia Civil clarified yesterday that the two operations carried out this week against drug trafficking and money laundering on Ibiza, among other locations, are actually two phases of the same operation, which has been named ‘Dragon Ball’ and which is directed against an Albanian organization and the Italian links in Spain of the ‘Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, with ramifications in parts of the country and abroad.
Ibiza has been the epicenter of the last phase of the operation ‘Dragon Ball’, according to the statement released by the Guardia Civil. The island has been the scene of 38 of the 42 searches that the armed forces have carried out since Tuesday last week in Spain, while two have taken place in Malaga, one in Barcelona and another in Tenerife. In addition, hideouts have been located in wooded passages on the island of Ibiza (everything indicates that the police deployment in a road from Camí Vell de Sant Mateu towards the Polígono de Montecristo would confirm this final point).
Drugs, luxury items and real estate seized
The result: 32 arrested of Italian, Albanian and Hungarian nationality; the seizure of drugs worth 4.1 million euros; immobilized real estate worth approximately 22 million euros; 23 high-end vehicles seized; 330,000 euros in cash seized; two firearms and luxury items seized, as well as documents that “could be related to money laundering from criminal activities”.
The dismantled Albanian organization supplied its Italian collaborator with firearms and drugs on the island of Ibiza. Both organizations invested their respective profits in real estate in the main tourist destinations in Europe, among which Ibiza stands out.
According to the Guardia Civil, with this blow to drug trafficking, 94,500 doses of ecstasy and cocaine, valued at 4.1 million euros, have been prevented from entering the market. In terms of weight, the list of substances seized is as follows: 18 kilos of methamphetamine with which could have manufactured 870,000 ecstasy pills; 4.5 kilos of cocaine and a cannabis plantation with 600 marijuana plants, in addition to “significant quantities of other substances”.
116 current accounts and 15 ‘high standing’ properties used for money laundering have also been blocked. Among the seized objects, luxury watches (Bulgari, Rolex and Cartier), jewelry, documents related to foreign bank accounts, false identity documents, frequency inhibitors, a multitude of cell phones, USB sticks, tablets and other electronic devices were seized.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.