Spanish police say they’ve broken up Sinaloa cartel network, and seized 1.8 tons of meth

MADRID (AP) — Spanish police dismantled a major methamphetamine distribution network of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel after seizing 1.8 tons of the illegal drug, police said Thursday.

Spain’s National Police called it the largest confiscation of methamphetamines ever made in the country.

Police said they made five arrests — a Mexican national whom police identified as the group’s leader, as well as three Spanish people and one Romanian — and raided six properties in the eastern region of Valencia.

Officer Antonio Martínez celebrated the “eradication of this group,” which police believed was trying to establish a presense in Spain.

According to Martínez, the group used houses in isolated areas in the Valencia region to store the smuggled shipments of methamphetamines before using vehicles with false bottoms to send them on to other European countries.

“We in the National Police thought that the Mexican cartels were not established in Spain,” Martínez said. “But it is true that due to the pressure they are under in other parts of Europe, above all against their laboratories, we are seeing how they are trying to start operations or set up illegal laboratories in Spain to produce drugs.”

An investigation is continuing and police said there could be further arrests.