An operation between Spain and Portugal has allowed fifteen people to be arrested, including one accused of drug trafficking known as “the fearsome Calín”, while he was trying to flee to the Dominican Republic, the Spanish police reported Saturday.
The police explained in a statement that an organization accused of introducing cocaine into Spain, allegedly led by Carlos Julio Matos Montero, “the fearsome Calín”, who has a blong criminal record and was about to flee from Portugal to the Dominican Republic, his native country, was dismantled.
This man was investigated by the Spanish Police since 2019 as allegedly responsible for the introduction into Spain of forty kilos of cocaine through Madrid airport and was arrested while he was going to take a flight from Lisbon.
Among other things, Matos Montero was arrested in 2014 in the Dominican Republic for the death of Oscar González Matos. He had arrived in that country deported in 2003 after serving one year in prison in the United States, in 2009 he was charged with two murders and in 2011 he was charged with another.
The police operation culminated in numerous searches in several Spanish cities, in which 83 kilos of cocaine, 28 telephone terminals, a revolver, seven vehicles, two scales, 4,240 euros in cash, six high-end watches, 15 luxury handbags, 560 grams of hashish and numerous documents, among others, were seized effects.
The investigation began in April 2021 when the agents learned that a man of Dominican origin was allegedly responsible for the transfer of a woman to the Spanish island of Lanzarote (Atlántico) with sixty balls of cocaine, for which she was arrested at Madrid airport.
The agents found out that it was “the fearsome Calín” and later detected that the alleged recipient of the narcotic drug and leader of the organization fled to Portugal after he became aware of the arrests of other alleged members of the gang, for which a European arrest warrant was issued and was arrested by the Police of Portugal when trying to escape to its country of origin.
At the same time, two other men were arrested, specifically those responsible for the sale of the narcotic substance and the laundering of money-laundering from the illicit trade.
The investigation pointed out that those investigated could own a suitcase operated at Lisbon airport in October 2021 with thirty kilos of cocaine and another two in January 2022 with another fifty kilos, until they made several arrests, including a woman who used false documentation from Belgium to conceal an arrest warrant that weighed on her for drug trafficking, according to the Police.
Through the International Cooperation Division and the Interior Attaché of the Spanish Embassy in Lisbon, collaboration mechanisms were activated and suspicions were corroborated.
The investigations carried out by the Portuguese police made it possible to identify the traveler whose name was on the suitcases, confirming that he was part of the criminal group under investigation. Therefore, in early March, the agents located him in Madrid, where he was arrested together with the owners of the intervened substance.
(With information from EFE and Europa Press)
KEEP READING: