Discretion “is strength” in the drug world. The agent who has followed Carmelo’s footsteps for months knows this well. of the skinknown in his native Ayamonte (Huelva) for coming from a wealthy family. The lesson must have also been learned by Carmelo himself for having created a gang as “powerful as it is discreet”, as the researcher, who requests anonymity, abounds, capable of introducing large shipments of hashish from Huelva to Malaga and distributing it in several shipments to ensure that the cargo reached its European buyers.
Up to 29 alleged members of Carmelo’s gang have ended up detained by the Civil Guard of Algeciras in the so-called Operation Truck, coordinated by the Anti-Drug Prosecutor’s Office of Campo de Gibraltar and directed by the Investigative Court Number 3 of La Línea de la Concepción. The operation, carried out on October 2 but reported this Thursday, has involved the recovery of 8,946 kilos of hashish, 123 kilos of buds and 736 marijuana plants, in addition to four firearms, 11 vehicles and a truck. Among those detained already in prison are a brother and a cousin of the alleged leader of the organization, but in the 18 searches carried out that day no trace of Carmelo himself was found, now fleeing from the action of Justice.
Carmelo the of the peel He is an old acquaintance for the Huelva Civil Guard agents who have collaborated in the investigations of their Algeciras colleagues. Carmelo, who is around 36 years old, became strong in the area by organizing discreet shipments of hashish on fishing boats and on drug boats that he moved along the Guadiana and Guadalquivir rivers. “He must have been involved in this since 2017, at least,” say sources close to the investigation. From the perspective of the gallery, the investigated man ran seafood cookers and lived “in a normal house, with a good car, but it’s not crazy either,” according to the same investigator.
But the Civil Guard attributes him to the direction of a gang so powerful that it was capable of creating branches in the provinces of Huelva, Málaga and Cádiz. In this last province, he managed to establish relationships for logistical support to his organization in the Campo de Gibraltar area. From there arises the link to a police investigation initiated by the Algeciras Command and which has taken more than a year of investigations. Carmelo and his men were able to evade the agents thanks to the creation of a sophisticated network of drug stashes, known as daycaresamong those who moved the drugs to avoid their interception.
The first stop of these hiding places was in Ayamonte and Sanlúcar de Barrameda, where the hashish spent the first few hours and then ended up in Coín (Málaga). From there, it in turn left in trucks destined for buyers in other parts of Europe. This last jump of the merchandise, before losing sight of it in Spain, was confirmed when a trafficking group of the Civil Guard seized part of the drugs seized in the town of Loja (Granada), when a truck was preparing to transport the cost to France.
The sophistication of the band was evident in the record of the Sanlúcar nursery. There, in a rustic plot, agents found an underground water tank that was accessed through a trapdoor in the ground. It seemed to be just a warehouse, until the civil guards located in another part of the property a switch that activated a hydraulic mechanism that moved the water tank to give access to an underground cellar where the organization hid the drugs.
Investigators believe that Carmelo’s gang is also related to a robbery or drug dump that occurred in Coín on July 11 and in which some of its members were about to be victims. That day, while investigators were following one of those drug shipments to the Malaga daycare, the agents noticed how several people dressed in National Police vests boarded the car that Carmelo’s gang was using to move the hashish. The thieves or paleros —called that in police jargon—they tried to flee using the firearms they had on them. The pursuit then led to a chase that ended in an accident between the fleeing vehicle and a truck that was traveling on public roads. The action resulted in the arrest of 1 person and the seizure of 450 kilos of hashish and 3 firearms.
The Civil Guard considers the operation of the Carmelo gang dismantled. However, sources close to the case do not rule out that the investigations may now continue to find out to what extent that nickname of the peel It has to do, in addition to his family’s money, with the enormous benefits that these years of carrying hashish must have provided him. It remains to be seen where the boss is and how long his escape takes. “Somehow he will end up appearing because he is a familiar person,” predict sources close to the case.
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